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This latest work features individuals chasing after clean slates, attempting to leave behind drugs or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into deliberately jaded through recurring use. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the story. Meanwhile, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, as this seems a different type of work – documentarian, truly literary. Yet it proves to be laden with the recurring issues and approaches as her previous works.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

The writer was originally an visual artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming personal female narrative from humiliation into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the epistolary style infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a maverick maker who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It follows that she presently aims to experiment with fresh narrative sources, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a moment when she states that current political era turns intimate literature obsolete.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing three generations – all unable to escape their backgrounds. There is the story of Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, moving from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. There is the account of Kraus, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a community long abandoned by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader drawn to polished prose of the type Kraus typically rejects, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section.

As a reader who favors honed writing of the variety that the author usually avoids, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. There is a novel degree of detail that makes room for small details, like the bucket that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, aided by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like piece candy". She tells Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this different style could last out the book. The author states here that she dislikes the pleasure audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while moving between two different states, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a society driven by the anger and fear that powers a political win. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. 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 leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the murder itself – and the titular day experienced by the murdered individual with the killer and his associates. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what happened when Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, mooching around getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.

Fascination and Incompletion

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partly through the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par