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The new book is populated with characters seeking clean slates, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", rendering it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the story. At the same time, she seems to be making her individual reinvention, because this presents as a new kind of book – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. However it proves to be filled with the same dilemmas and approaches as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus began as an visual artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting personal female narrative from humiliation into rebellion. She continued writing, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a maverick maker who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It follows that she presently aims to try out new kinds of material, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a period in which 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 histories. We encounter the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, relocating from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a locality mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.

As a reader fond of polished prose of the type the author herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the narrative style of the initial segment.

As someone who reads drawn to precise prose of the style that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It possesses a fresh level of observation that allows space for minutiae, like the container that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, helped by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's story with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this different style could persist to the end. The author states here that she dislikes the enjoyment audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the unpolished style she echoes from her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books comes back in the middle section. Catt is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between two different states, unable to aid her husband curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a world fueled by the rage and anxiety that drives Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on social media, her listed profession modified from "author" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she says that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the titular day experienced by the deceased with the killer and his companions. The author possesses great source material, and details moment by moment what happened when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, mooching around getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who gains dimension partly through Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par