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This latest work is populated with protagonists seeking fresh starts, trying to break free from substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into violence. Chris 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 decided to make a fresh start" recur in the story. And yet, she appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, because this presents as a new kind of book – fact-based, truly literary. Yet it turns out to be laden with the recurring issues and styles as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

Kraus was originally an visual artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming personal female narrative from abjection into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the impact and rawness that the correspondence format brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a nonconformist creator who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It follows that she presently aims to explore fresh narrative sources, turning outward to other people's stories, at a moment when she states that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Three Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning several time periods – all unable to escape their pasts. We encounter the narrative about Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, relocating from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. There is the account of Kraus, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a locality largely deserted by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

From my perspective as a reader drawn to polished prose of the sort Kraus herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the first section.

As a reader who appreciates crafted language of the variety that the author usually avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates minutiae, like the pail that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."

Frustration and Disruption

I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this fresh tone could persist to the end. The author states here that she resents the pleasure audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works reasserts itself in the middle section. The protagonist is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a world driven by the hostility and dread that drives an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "author" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she states that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the titular day passed by the victim with the murderer and his companions. Kraus has excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partly through Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par