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This latest work features individuals chasing after fresh starts, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into deliberately jaded through recurring use. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the narrative. Meanwhile, she is embarking on her own fresh start, since this presents as a new kind of book – observational, authentically narrative. But then it turns out to be packed with the recurring issues and aesthetics as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book

Chris Kraus started out as an artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, converting confessional female writing from abjection into rebellion. She continued writing, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels missed the power and directness that the correspondence format infused into the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role 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 currently desires to explore new kinds of material, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a moment when she claims that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Three Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning several time periods – all unable to escape their backgrounds. We encounter the tale of Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, transitioning from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a community largely deserted by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

For this reader drawn to honed writing of the type Kraus often avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial segment.

As a reader drawn to precise prose of the style that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that accommodates trivial aspects, like the container that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, helped by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was fated to feel let down when I wished this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the enjoyment audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her hero Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt Greene is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a society fueled by the hostility and dread that drives Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "author" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an America that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the actual killing – and the eponymous day spent by the deceased with the killer and his companions. Kraus utilizes great source material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par