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The new book features protagonists pursuing clean slates, trying to break free from drugs or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into intentionally weary through recurring use. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the story. At the same time, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, as this presents as a different type of work – observational, genuinely novelistic. However it proves to be packed with the familiar conflicts and styles as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus started out as an creative who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, transforming confessional female writing from humiliation into defiance. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style infused into the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a renegade artist who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It makes sense that she presently aims to explore different types of content, turning outward to external narratives, at a moment when she states that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning multiple eras – all unable to escape their backgrounds. We encounter the tale of Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, moving from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the persona of Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a community mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.

For this reader drawn to refined literature of the kind the author herself often avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section.

As someone who reads drawn to honed writing of the kind that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It possesses a novel degree of detail that makes room for small details, like the bucket that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a world fueled by the anger and fear that underpins an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. At one point she states that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the referenced day spent by the victim with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what happened when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter 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 a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par