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This latest work is populated with protagonists pursuing clean slates, struggling to escape drugs or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", rendering it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the story. And yet, the author herself is embarking on her own fresh start, since this seems a different type of work – documentarian, authentically narrative. However it reveals itself to be packed with the recurring issues and styles as earlier books.

From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book

Chris Kraus began as an artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, transforming intimate women's literature from abjection into defiance. She continued writing, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a maverick maker who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It follows that she presently aims to try out different types of content, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a period in which she states that current political era turns intimate literature obsolete.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning multiple eras – all unable to escape their histories. The book includes the tale of Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, moving from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the guise of Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a community mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a short distance from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader drawn to honed writing of the kind the author herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the narrative style of the initial segment.

Being a reader drawn to honed writing of the variety that the author often disregards, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates small details, like the bucket that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, aided by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". She tells the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this new voice could last out the book. The author states here that she dislikes the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works returns in the middle section. The protagonist is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a world fueled by the hostility and dread that powers an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her occupation changed from "writer" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she states that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day passed by the deceased with the perpetrator and his companions. The author possesses excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, loitering getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to go further into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par