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This latest work is populated with individuals pursuing clean slates, struggling to escape addictions or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", rendering it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the text. And yet, the author herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, as this appears a different type of work – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. But then it turns out to be packed with the same dilemmas and styles as her previous works.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus began as an visual artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, transforming intimate women's literature from humiliation into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the power and directness that the epistolary style infused into the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a maverick maker who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. 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 contemporary political climate turns intimate literature redundant.

Three Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing several time periods – each trapped by their backgrounds. The book includes the story of Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, transitioning from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a town mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader attracted to honed writing of the kind Kraus herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

Being a reader drawn to crafted language of the style that the author usually avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening segment. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that accommodates minutiae, like the container that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the start of the story, assisted by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she dislikes the satisfaction audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books comes back in the second segment. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid her husband curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a environment driven by the anger and fear that drives an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. In a moment she says that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even see".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the actual killing – and the eponymous day spent by the deceased with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, wandering about getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par