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The new book features characters pursuing clean slates, struggling to escape drugs or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into violence. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", making it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the story. And yet, the author herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, as this presents as a novel form of writing – fact-based, truly literary. Yet it proves to be laden with the familiar conflicts and styles as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus was originally an creative who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, transforming personal female narrative from humiliation into defiance. She continued writing, but the following three engaging and challenging novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style brought to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a nonconformist creator who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It makes sense that she presently aims to explore fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a period in which she states that current political era renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning multiple eras – each trapped by their histories. There is the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a locality mostly forsaken by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader attracted to honed writing of the sort the author herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.

Being a reader who appreciates crafted language of the variety that the author usually avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial part. There is a fresh level of observation that makes room for small details, like the container that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like piece candy". She tells the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this new voice could last out the book. The author states here that she resents the satisfaction audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the unpolished style she has in common with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books returns in the second segment. The protagonist is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help her husband control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a world propelled by the rage and anxiety that underpins an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on social media, her listed profession modified from "author" to "property owner" on a reference site. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. At one point she says that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the actual killing – and the referenced day spent by the murdered individual with the killer and his friends. Kraus has great source material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, mooching around getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who gains dimension in part due to Catt seeing herself in 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. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par