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This latest work centers on individuals chasing after new beginnings, trying to break free from addictions or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", making it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the story. At the same time, the author herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, since this presents as a different type of work – fact-based, authentically narrative. However it reveals itself to be filled with the same dilemmas and approaches as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book

The writer started out as an artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, converting intimate women's literature from abjection into defiance. She kept producing books, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels missed the power and directness that the correspondence format infused into the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a renegade artist who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It makes sense that she presently aims to experiment with fresh narrative sources, turning outward to other people's stories, at a time when she states that current political era makes confessional writing redundant.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing several time periods – none able to break free from their backgrounds. There is the story of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, moving from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a town largely deserted by liberal ideals only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader drawn to polished prose of the type Kraus herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the opening part.

Being a reader who favors crafted language of the variety that the author often disregards, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial part. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that allows space for trivial aspects, like the pail that the young Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the pleasure readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between two different states, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as her spouse moves between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a environment propelled by the anger and fear that underpins Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "author" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she states that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the murder itself – and the referenced day spent by the deceased with the killer and his friends. Kraus has excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partly through the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par