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This latest work is populated with individuals pursuing clean slates, attempting to leave behind addictions or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into willfully cynical through recurring use. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the narrative. At the same time, she is embarking on her own fresh start, because this seems a novel form of writing – observational, genuinely novelistic. However it proves to be packed with the recurring issues and approaches as her previous works.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

Kraus started out as an artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming personal female narrative from abjection into defiance. She kept producing books, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels lacked the power and directness that the correspondence format imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a renegade artist who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It makes sense that she now wants to explore fresh narrative sources, turning outward to external narratives, at a period in which she claims that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing redundant.

Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning several time periods – all unable to escape their histories. There is the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a community largely deserted by liberal ideals only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader attracted to refined literature of the kind the author herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the first section.

As a reader who favors honed writing of the kind that Kraus herself often disregards, I was won over by the literary tone of the opening segment. There is a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates small details, like the pail that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, helped by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a nice toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this new voice could persist to the end. The author states here that she resents the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels comes back in the central part. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a environment propelled by the hostility and dread that underpins Trump's victory. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she states that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even see".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the titular day spent by the victim with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus has excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par