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This latest work features characters chasing after clean slates, struggling to escape substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into aggression. The author often employs the phrase "fresh start", rendering it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the story. And yet, Kraus herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, since this presents as a new kind of book – documentarian, truly literary. Yet it proves to be filled with the same dilemmas and approaches as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book

Chris Kraus began as an artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance 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 three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the power and directness that the correspondence format imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a renegade artist who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It is logical that she presently aims to experiment with different types of content, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a time when she claims that current political era makes confessional writing redundant.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing multiple eras – all unable to escape their backgrounds. The book includes the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, relocating from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. There is the account of Kraus, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a locality long abandoned by liberal ideals only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.

For this reader drawn to honed writing of the kind the author herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the initial segment.

As a reader drawn to honed writing of the kind that the author tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for minutiae, like the container that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the unpolished style she shares with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels comes back in the middle section. The protagonist is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between two different states, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a environment fueled by the anger and fear that powers an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on social media, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she states that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an America that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the titular day spent by the victim with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what occurred as Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, loitering fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par