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This latest work centers on protagonists chasing after clean slates, trying to break free from substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", making it willfully cynical through recurring use. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the story. And yet, she is embarking on her own fresh start, since this presents as a new kind of book – observational, genuinely novelistic. However it proves to be packed with the same dilemmas and styles as her previous works.

From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book

Chris Kraus began as an artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming personal female narrative from abjection into rebellion. She continued writing, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the power and directness that the epistolary style imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a maverick maker who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It follows that she currently desires to explore fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to external narratives, at a period in which she states that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature redundant.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing several time periods – none able to break free from their pasts. We encounter the narrative about Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a community largely deserted by liberal ideals only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.

As a reader fond of refined literature of the sort the author herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the first section.

As a reader who appreciates crafted language of the kind that Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the first section. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for small details, like the pail that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she dislikes the pleasure audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels returns in the central part. The protagonist is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a environment fueled by the anger and fear that underpins a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she says that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the actual killing – and the titular day spent by the deceased with the killer and his friends. Kraus utilizes great source material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter 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 murdered by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par