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The new book is populated with individuals chasing after new beginnings, struggling to escape substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into willfully cynical through its repetitions. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the story. And yet, she seems to be making her individual reinvention, as this seems a new kind of book – fact-based, truly literary. Yet it reveals itself to be filled with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as earlier books.

From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book

Kraus started out as an artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, converting confessional female writing from self-debasement into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the power and directness that the correspondence format infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a renegade artist who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It makes sense that she currently desires to experiment with new kinds of material, looking outwards to external narratives, at a time when she asserts that current political era turns intimate literature obsolete.

Three Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning multiple eras – all unable to escape their histories. We encounter the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a locality long abandoned by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.

As a reader attracted to honed writing of the sort the author herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the narrative style of the opening part.

As a reader who appreciates honed writing of the kind that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the initial part. There is a fresh level of observation that accommodates trivial aspects, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the start of the story, helped by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this different style could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the enjoyment readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works comes back in the central part. Catt Greene is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a world propelled by the anger and fear that drives Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "property owner" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. At one point she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the actual killing – and the referenced day passed by the victim with the killer and his associates. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, mooching around getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who comes alive partially because of Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par