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This latest work features protagonists pursuing clean slates, struggling to escape drugs or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into conflict. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the narrative. At the same time, the author herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, because this appears a different type of work – observational, authentically narrative. Yet it reveals itself to be filled with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as earlier books.

From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work

Kraus started out as an visual artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting confessional female writing from self-debasement into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the following three engaging and challenging novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style infused into the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It is logical that she presently aims to experiment with different types of content, looking outwards to external narratives, at a time when she states that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature unnecessary.

Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing several time periods – each trapped by their backgrounds. We encounter the narrative about Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, transitioning from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. There is the narrative of the author, in the character of Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a locality largely deserted by progressive politics only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.

From my perspective as a reader attracted to polished prose of the kind Kraus herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the opening part.

Being a reader drawn to honed writing of the style that Kraus usually avoids, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It possesses a fresh level of observation that accommodates trivial aspects, like the container that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". She tells Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels reasserts itself in the second segment. The protagonist is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between two different states, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a environment propelled by the anger and fear that underpins Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she says that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day spent by the victim with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, loitering getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par