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This latest work features protagonists seeking clean slates, struggling to escape drugs or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into violence. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", making it willfully cynical through recurring use. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the narrative. And yet, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, as this appears a novel form of writing – observational, authentically narrative. But then it turns out to be laden with the familiar conflicts and styles as her previous works.

From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book

Chris Kraus started out as an visual artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, converting intimate women's literature from humiliation into rebellion. She continued writing, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format brought to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a renegade artist who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It makes sense that she presently aims to explore different types of content, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a time when she claims that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning several time periods – none able to break free from their pasts. We encounter the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, relocating from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a town largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.

As a reader attracted to refined literature of the sort Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section.

As someone who reads who favors precise prose of the kind that the author tends to eschew, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for minutiae, like the pail that the young Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this different style could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she resents the pleasure readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she has in common with her hero Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works comes back in the middle section. Catt is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between two different states, unable to aid her husband curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a world fueled by the anger and fear that drives Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her occupation changed from "author" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. At one point she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the titular day passed by the murdered individual with the killer and his friends. Kraus utilizes great source material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, loitering getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.

Fascination and Incompletion

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par