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The new book centers on characters pursuing new beginnings, struggling to escape addictions or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the text. And yet, she is embarking on her own fresh start, since this seems a new kind of book – fact-based, authentically narrative. Yet it proves to be laden with the recurring issues and approaches as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus began as an artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating intimate women's literature from humiliation into rebellion. She continued writing, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the power and directness that the epistolary style infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a maverick maker who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It makes sense that she now wants to experiment with fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a period in which she states that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing redundant.

Three Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning several time periods – all unable to escape their pasts. The book includes the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, moving from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a locality long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader fond of honed writing of the kind the author herself often avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section.

As a reader who appreciates honed writing of the variety that Kraus often disregards, I was won over by the literary tone of the opening segment. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that accommodates minutiae, like the container that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like hard candy". She tells Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this new voice could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the pleasure audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works comes back in the middle section. Catt is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a world fueled by the anger and fear that drives an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she states that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the actual killing – and the titular day experienced by the deceased with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus has excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what happened when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, loitering fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par