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This latest work is populated with characters pursuing clean slates, trying to break free from drugs or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", making it willfully cynical through recurring use. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the story. At the same time, she appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, since this presents as a novel form of writing – fact-based, truly literary. But then it proves to be packed with the same dilemmas and styles as earlier books.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus started out as an creative who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, elevating confessional female writing from humiliation into defiance. She continued writing, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the epistolary style brought to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a renegade artist who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It makes sense that she presently aims to try out fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a time when she states that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing redundant.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning several time periods – none able to break free from their histories. There is the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, transitioning from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a community mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.

For this reader fond of polished prose of the kind Kraus herself often avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section.

As someone who reads drawn to crafted language of the kind that the author tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial part. There is a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates small details, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the start of the story, aided by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a nice toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". She tells Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this new voice could last out the book. Kraus says here that she dislikes the pleasure audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she echoes from her hero Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books returns in the central part. Catt is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a world propelled by the anger and fear that drives a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her online critics 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 victim with the murderer and his companions. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what happened when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, loitering having his vehicle repaired 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.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who comes alive in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par