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The new book centers on protagonists seeking clean slates, struggling to escape drugs or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", making it willfully cynical through recurring use. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the story. And yet, she appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, since this seems a new kind of book – observational, truly literary. However it proves to be packed with the recurring issues and styles as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

Kraus was originally an artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating intimate women's literature from abjection into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the letter form imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a maverick maker who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It follows that she now wants to explore different types of content, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a time when she claims that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering three generations – none able to break free from their backgrounds. We encounter the story of Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, moving from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a locality largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

As a reader attracted to refined literature of the kind the author herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section.

Being a reader drawn to honed writing of the variety that Kraus often disregards, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for minutiae, like the pail that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, helped by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the unpolished style she shares with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as her spouse transitions between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a world fueled by the rage and anxiety that underpins an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her online critics would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Murder Narrative

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the eponymous day passed by the victim with the murderer and his associates. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what happened when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, mooching around fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to go further into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to 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