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The new book centers on individuals chasing after fresh starts, trying to break free from drugs or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", making it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the narrative. And yet, she is embarking on her individual reinvention, since this presents as a new kind of book – documentarian, truly literary. Yet it reveals itself to be packed with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus began as an visual artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting personal female narrative from abjection into defiance. She continued writing, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels missed the impact and rawness that the correspondence format brought to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a nonconformist creator who had become a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It is logical that she currently desires to explore different types of content, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a time when she states that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering multiple eras – each trapped by their pasts. We encounter the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, relocating from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a community mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader drawn to refined literature of the sort the author herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the initial segment.

Being a reader who appreciates precise prose of the style that Kraus usually avoids, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the first section. There is a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for minutiae, like the container that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, aided by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."

Frustration and Disruption

I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her hero Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works returns in the central part. Catt is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a society driven by the anger and fear that underpins Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her listed profession modified from "author" to "landlord" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she states that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her online critics would not understand, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the titular day experienced by the deceased with the killer and his friends. Kraus utilizes great source material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, mooching around fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par