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This latest work is populated with protagonists chasing after new beginnings, struggling to escape drugs or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into violence. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into willfully cynical through recurring use. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the story. Meanwhile, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, because this presents as a different type of work – documentarian, authentically narrative. But then it reveals itself to be filled with the familiar conflicts and styles as earlier books.

From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic

Kraus started out as an visual artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming personal female narrative from self-debasement into assassination. She kept producing books, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the letter form brought to the tone 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 real estate deals. It makes sense that she currently desires to try out new kinds of material, looking outwards to external narratives, at a time when she asserts that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative redundant.

Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering three generations – each trapped by their pasts. The book includes the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, moving from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a town largely deserted by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader drawn to honed writing of the type Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the narrative style of the opening part.

Being a reader who appreciates honed writing of the kind that the author tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that makes room for trivial aspects, like the pail that the young Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she resents the satisfaction audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books returns in the middle section. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as her spouse cycles through low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a world driven by the rage and anxiety that drives a political win. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "landlord" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she says that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her online critics would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the actual killing – and the eponymous day spent by the victim with the murderer and his friends. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, loitering having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par