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The new book is populated with characters chasing after new beginnings, struggling to escape drugs or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the narrative. Meanwhile, the author herself is embarking on her own fresh start, because this appears a new kind of book – observational, genuinely novelistic. But then it turns out to be packed with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book

Kraus began as an artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating personal female narrative from abjection into rebellion. She continued writing, but the following three engaging and challenging novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a maverick maker who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It makes sense that she currently desires to explore new kinds of material, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a moment when she states that current political era turns intimate literature redundant.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering several time periods – all unable to escape their pasts. There is the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, moving from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the character of Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband her husband Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a community mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader fond of polished prose of the kind Kraus often avoids, I was seduced by the narrative style of the first section.

Being a reader who appreciates precise prose of the kind that Kraus herself often disregards, I was won over by the literary tone of the opening segment. There is a fresh level of observation that allows space for minutiae, like the container that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, helped by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". She tells Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this new voice could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works comes back in the middle section. The protagonist is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as her spouse moves between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a environment fueled by the anger and fear that drives an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "author" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. At one point she states that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her social media opponents would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Homicide Account

Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day spent by the victim with the killer and his companions. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what transpired when Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, wandering about fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to go further into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partly through Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par