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The new book features protagonists seeking fresh starts, trying to break free from drugs or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into aggression. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the narrative. At the same time, the author herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, as this seems a new kind of book – documentarian, truly literary. But then it proves to be laden with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

The writer was originally an creative who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, converting personal female narrative from self-debasement into defiance. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the power and directness that the epistolary style infused into the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a maverick maker who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It follows that she currently desires to try out different types of content, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a moment when she claims that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing obsolete.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning several time periods – each trapped by their pasts. We encounter the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, relocating from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a town mostly forsaken by progressive politics only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.

For this reader attracted to refined literature of the sort Kraus typically rejects, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.

As a reader who favors crafted language of the style that Kraus herself often disregards, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the initial part. There is a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for small details, like the bucket that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, helped by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like hard candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was fated to feel let down when I wished this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the enjoyment readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her hero Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books comes back in the middle section. The protagonist is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a environment driven by the rage and anxiety that underpins Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her occupation changed from "writer" to "property owner" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she says that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Homicide Account

Then we reach to the actual killing – and the titular day experienced by the deceased with the perpetrator and his friends. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what occurred as a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, loitering having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par