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This latest work features individuals chasing after fresh starts, trying to break free from drugs or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", rendering it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the story. And yet, the author herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, since this seems a novel form of writing – observational, authentically narrative. However it reveals itself to be laden with the recurring issues and approaches as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

Kraus was originally an artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming confessional female writing from abjection into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent 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 role as a maverick maker who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It is logical that she currently desires to experiment with different types of content, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a period in which she asserts that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative redundant.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering multiple eras – all unable to escape their backgrounds. We encounter the tale of Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, moving from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the character of Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a locality long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader attracted to refined literature of the kind Kraus herself often avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.

As someone who reads drawn to precise prose of the variety that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section. It possesses a fresh level of observation that allows space for minutiae, like the pail that the young Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". She tells Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she resents the satisfaction readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the unpolished style she has in common with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt Greene is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse moves between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a society fueled by the rage and anxiety that underpins a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. At one point she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the murder itself – and the titular day spent by the murdered individual with the killer and his companions. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who comes alive partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par