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The new book is populated with individuals pursuing new beginnings, struggling to escape substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. The author often employs the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into willfully cynical through its repetitions. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the text. And yet, the author herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, because this presents as a new kind of book – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. Yet it proves to be laden with the familiar conflicts and approaches as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus started out as an visual artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating personal female narrative from humiliation into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the following three engaging and challenging novels lacked the impact and rawness that the correspondence format imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a renegade artist who had turned into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It follows that she presently aims to experiment with fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a moment when she asserts that current political era renders personal narrative obsolete.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering three generations – none able to break free from their histories. The book includes the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, transitioning from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a community long abandoned by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.

For this reader attracted to polished prose of the kind Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the first section.

As someone who reads drawn to crafted language of the style that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial part. It possesses a novel degree of detail that allows space for small details, like the container that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, aided by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this fresh tone could continue through the novel. The author states here that she dislikes the satisfaction audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels comes back in the central part. Catt is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid her husband manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a environment driven by the anger and fear that drives Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she says that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the titular day spent by the victim with the murderer and his companions. Kraus utilizes great source material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, loitering getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

Fascination and Incompletion

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par