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This latest work is populated with protagonists chasing after clean slates, struggling to escape addictions or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into violence. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into deliberately jaded through recurring use. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the story. Meanwhile, the author herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, since this presents as a different type of work – observational, authentically narrative. But then it reveals itself to be packed with the familiar conflicts and approaches as her previous works.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus was originally an artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating confessional female writing from abjection into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the letter form imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a renegade artist who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It is logical that she now wants to explore new kinds of material, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a time when she states that current political era renders personal narrative redundant.

Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning three generations – each trapped by their pasts. There is the story of Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, moving from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a town largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader attracted to honed writing of the kind Kraus herself often avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.

As someone who reads who appreciates honed writing of the variety that Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the first section. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that allows space for minutiae, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, helped by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this new voice could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the enjoyment audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt Greene is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between two different states, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a world driven by the rage and anxiety that drives a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her occupation changed from "writer" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she states that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the referenced day passed by the murdered individual with the killer and his companions. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what occurred as Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, loitering getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par