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This latest work features protagonists chasing after clean slates, struggling to escape substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into violence. Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into willfully cynical through recurring use. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the text. At the same time, the author herself is embarking on her own fresh start, since this appears a new kind of book – observational, truly literary. But then it reveals itself to be packed with the recurring issues and styles as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book

Chris Kraus began as an visual artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting intimate women's literature from self-debasement into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a renegade artist who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It follows that she currently desires to try out fresh narrative sources, turning outward to external narratives, at a moment when she claims that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing obsolete.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing three generations – each trapped by their backgrounds. We encounter the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, moving from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a locality mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader drawn to honed writing of the type Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the first section.

As a reader drawn to honed writing of the kind that the author often disregards, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial part. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that accommodates small details, like the container that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, helped by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."

Frustration and Disruption

I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this fresh tone could continue through the novel. The author states here that she is annoyed by the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works comes back 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 her husband control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a society propelled by the anger and fear that powers an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. At one point she states that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an America that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day spent by the deceased with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what occurred as a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, mooching around getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to go further into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par