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The new book features characters chasing after clean slates, attempting to leave behind addictions or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into violence. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the text. At the same time, the author herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, because this presents as a novel form of writing – documentarian, authentically narrative. But then it reveals itself to be laden with the familiar conflicts and styles as earlier books.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

Kraus was originally an visual artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting confessional female writing from humiliation into assassination. She kept producing books, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the power and directness that the letter form brought to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a maverick maker who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It is logical that she presently aims to experiment with new kinds of material, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a time when she asserts that current political era renders personal narrative redundant.

Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering three generations – each trapped by their pasts. The book includes the tale of Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, relocating from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a community mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader fond of honed writing of the kind Kraus tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.

Being a reader who appreciates precise prose of the kind that Kraus herself often disregards, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial part. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates small details, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the opening of the book, aided by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this fresh tone could continue through the novel. The author states here that she dislikes the pleasure readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her idol Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels returns in the central part. The protagonist is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between two different states, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a world propelled by the anger and fear that powers Trump's victory. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the actual killing – and the titular day spent by the murdered individual with the killer and his friends. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what happened when Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, wandering about getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par