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The new book is populated with characters chasing after new beginnings, attempting to leave behind drugs or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", rendering it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the story. Meanwhile, Kraus herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, since this seems a new kind of book – fact-based, truly literary. But then it turns out to be packed with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book

Chris Kraus began as an visual artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming intimate women's literature from self-debasement into assassination. She continued writing, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the power and directness that the letter form brought to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It follows that she currently desires to explore different types of content, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a time when she claims that current political era renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering multiple eras – each trapped by their backgrounds. We encounter the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, transitioning from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the character of Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a town mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader drawn to honed writing of the type Kraus herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section.

As a reader drawn to precise prose of the kind that Kraus often disregards, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that accommodates minutiae, like the bucket that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, helped by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Frustration and Disruption

I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this new voice could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the satisfaction readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books comes back in the central part. The protagonist is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a society propelled by the hostility and dread that underpins a political win. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she states that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her online critics would not understand, would not even see".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the actual killing – and the referenced day passed by the victim with the killer and his friends. The author possesses excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, wandering about getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par