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This latest work is populated with individuals chasing after fresh starts, struggling to escape addictions or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", making it willfully cynical through recurring use. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the story. At the same time, the author herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, because this presents as a different type of work – observational, genuinely novelistic. But then it proves to be filled with the recurring issues and styles as past novels.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

Kraus began as an artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating confessional female writing from self-debasement into defiance. She continued writing, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels lacked the impact and rawness that the epistolary style brought to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a renegade artist who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It makes sense that she currently desires to experiment with different types of content, turning outward to external narratives, at a time when she asserts that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature obsolete.

Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering several time periods – each trapped by their backgrounds. There is the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, moving from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. There is the narrative of the author, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a locality largely deserted by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.

From my perspective as a reader fond of honed writing of the sort Kraus herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section.

Being a reader who favors precise prose of the variety that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the initial part. There is a novel degree of detail that accommodates small details, like the container that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, helped by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was fated to feel let down when I wished this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she resents the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the unpolished style she shares with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels reasserts itself in the central part. The protagonist is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a environment fueled by the rage and anxiety that powers an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she says that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the referenced day spent by the deceased with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, wandering about getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Fascination and Incompletion

The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partly through Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par