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This latest work is populated with individuals chasing after fresh starts, trying to break free from drugs or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into violence. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", rendering it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the text. Meanwhile, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, as this seems a new kind of book – fact-based, authentically narrative. Yet it turns out to be packed with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book

Chris Kraus began as an artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, elevating intimate women's literature from humiliation into assassination. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style brought to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It is logical that she currently desires to explore different types of content, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a period in which she states that current political era makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing multiple eras – each trapped by their pasts. The book includes the tale of Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, relocating from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a community long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader attracted to refined literature of the type Kraus often avoids, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the initial segment.

As someone who reads who favors precise prose of the style that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the initial part. There is a fresh level of observation that accommodates minutiae, like the container that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the start of the story, helped by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this different style could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels returns in the central part. The protagonist is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between two different states, unable to aid her husband control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as her spouse transitions between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a society fueled by the anger and fear that underpins Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. At one point she states that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even see".

The Killing Story

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the eponymous day passed by the deceased with the murderer and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who gains dimension in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par