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This latest work centers on individuals seeking fresh starts, trying to break free from addictions or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into willfully cynical through its repetitions. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the narrative. Meanwhile, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, because this seems a different type of work – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. Yet it proves to be filled with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus started out as an artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming personal female narrative from humiliation into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the power and directness that the letter form imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a renegade artist who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It follows that she presently aims to experiment with different types of content, turning outward to external narratives, at a period in which she claims that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing three generations – all unable to escape their histories. There is the tale of Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, relocating from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a town long abandoned by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader attracted to honed writing of the type Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening part.

Being a reader who favors precise prose of the variety that the author tends to eschew, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. There is a fresh level of observation that makes room for small details, like the pail that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, helped by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". She tells Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."

Frustration and Disruption

I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the unpolished style she shares with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels returns in the middle section. Catt is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a society propelled by the hostility and dread that underpins an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her occupation changed from "writer" to "property owner" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. At one point she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even see".

The Murder Narrative

Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the referenced day spent by the deceased with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus has great source material, and details moment by moment what transpired when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par