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This latest work centers on characters pursuing clean slates, trying to break free from substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into conflict. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into deliberately jaded through recurring use. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the story. Meanwhile, she appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, since this appears a new kind of book – observational, genuinely novelistic. But then it turns out to be filled with the same dilemmas and approaches as her previous works.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

The writer started out as an artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, converting personal female narrative from self-debasement into defiance. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels missed the power and directness that the correspondence format brought to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a maverick maker who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It follows that she now wants to try out new kinds of material, turning outward to external narratives, at a period in which she states that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative redundant.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering several time periods – none able to break free from their pasts. We encounter the story of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. There is the narrative of the author, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a town long abandoned by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.

For this reader drawn to honed writing of the kind Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the narrative style of the first section.

As someone who reads drawn to crafted language of the variety that Kraus herself often disregards, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for minutiae, like the pail that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, helped by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books returns in the second segment. Catt is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse cycles through poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a society driven by the hostility and dread that underpins an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "property owner" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she says that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the eponymous day spent by the murdered individual with the murderer and his companions. The author possesses excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what happened when Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, loitering having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partly through Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par