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This latest work centers on protagonists seeking clean slates, struggling to escape substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", making it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the narrative. Meanwhile, she seems to be making her personal new beginning, because this presents as a different type of work – documentarian, authentically narrative. Yet it proves to be packed with the same dilemmas and styles as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus began as an visual artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating intimate women's literature from abjection into rebellion. She continued writing, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a maverick maker who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It follows that she presently aims to explore fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a period in which she asserts that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature redundant.

Three Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering multiple eras – none able to break free from their pasts. The book includes the story of characters Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, moving from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a town largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader fond of refined literature of the kind the author herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section.

As someone who reads drawn to crafted language of the style that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was won over by the literary tone of the initial part. There is a fresh level of observation that accommodates small details, like the pail that the young Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."

Frustration and Disruption

I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she resents the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she has in common with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt Greene is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between two different states, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as her spouse transitions between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a environment fueled by the rage and anxiety that powers a political win. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "author" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she says that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the murder itself – and the referenced day experienced by the deceased with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, wandering about fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par