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This latest work features characters seeking new beginnings, trying to break free from drugs or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into aggression. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", making it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the story. Meanwhile, the author herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, because this seems a new kind of book – fact-based, authentically narrative. However it reveals itself to be packed with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book

Chris Kraus was originally an artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming confessional female writing from abjection into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels lacked the impact and rawness that the correspondence format brought to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It is logical that she now wants to try out new kinds of material, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a period in which she asserts that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative redundant.

Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning three generations – each trapped by their histories. The book includes the narrative about Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. There is the account of Kraus, in the guise of Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a town largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader fond of honed writing of the kind Kraus herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.

As someone who reads who favors honed writing of the kind that the author often disregards, I was won over by the literary tone of the opening segment. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for minutiae, like the container that the young Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, helped by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". She tells Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this fresh tone could last out the book. The author states here that she dislikes the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books comes back in the middle section. Catt is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a environment fueled by the hostility and dread that drives an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she states that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the actual killing – and the referenced day spent by the victim with the killer and his companions. Kraus has great source material, and knows hour by hour what happened when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partially because of Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par