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The new book centers on protagonists seeking clean slates, attempting to leave behind drugs or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", rendering it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the narrative. And yet, Kraus herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, as this appears a different type of work – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. But then it proves to be filled with the recurring issues and approaches as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

Kraus started out as an artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating intimate women's literature from humiliation into defiance. She kept producing books, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a renegade artist who had turned into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It follows that she currently desires to try out different types of content, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a period in which she states that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing obsolete.

Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning multiple eras – all unable to escape their backgrounds. There is the story of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, relocating from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. There is the narrative of the author, in the character of Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a locality largely deserted by progressive politics only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.

As a reader drawn to polished prose of the type the author herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.

As someone who reads drawn to precise prose of the kind that Kraus usually avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that allows space for minutiae, like the bucket that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, aided by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a great plaything", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I wished this new voice could persist to the end. The author states here that she dislikes the enjoyment readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the unpolished style she has in common with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works reasserts itself in the central part. Catt is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting her husband manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a world driven by the rage and anxiety that drives an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her occupation changed from "writer" to "property owner" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. In a moment she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her online critics would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the murder itself – and the titular day passed by the deceased with the killer and his friends. Kraus has excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what occurred as the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, wandering about getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par