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This latest work features individuals pursuing fresh starts, struggling to escape addictions or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into aggression. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", rendering it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the text. And yet, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, because this seems a different type of work – observational, genuinely novelistic. But then it reveals itself to be filled with the recurring issues and styles as her previous works.

From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book

Chris Kraus was originally an visual artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, converting confessional female writing from humiliation into defiance. She continued writing, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the power and directness that the letter form infused into the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a nonconformist creator who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It makes sense that she now wants to try out new kinds of material, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a period in which she claims that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature unnecessary.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering three generations – none able to break free from their pasts. There is the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, relocating from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a locality mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

From my perspective as a reader drawn to honed writing of the sort Kraus typically rejects, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

Being a reader who favors crafted language of the kind that the author tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening segment. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates small details, like the pail that the young Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like sweet treats". She tells Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this different style could persist to the end. The author states here that she resents the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her hero Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels returns in the second segment. The protagonist is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid her husband curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a environment propelled by the hostility and dread that powers Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "landlord" on a reference site. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she states that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the actual killing – and the eponymous day passed by the deceased with the murderer and his associates. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what transpired when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, loitering having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who gains dimension partly through Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par