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The new book is populated with characters chasing after clean slates, struggling to escape substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", making it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the text. At the same time, the author herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, as this appears a novel form of writing – documentarian, truly literary. Yet it proves to be laden with the same dilemmas and approaches as her previous works.

From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book

Chris Kraus was originally an artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating intimate women's literature from self-debasement into defiance. She continued writing, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels missed the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style brought to the narrative 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 much discussion on property transactions. It is logical that she currently desires to try out new kinds of material, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a time when she asserts that current political era makes confessional writing redundant.

Three Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering three generations – all unable to escape their pasts. There is the tale of Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, moving from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a town largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.

As a reader fond of honed writing of the kind Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the narrative style of the first section.

As a reader who appreciates honed writing of the variety that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the first section. There is a fresh level of observation that makes room for minutiae, like the container that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the start of the story, helped by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this fresh tone could last out the book. The author states here that she resents the pleasure audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works returns in the middle section. Catt is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help her husband manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a society driven by the hostility and dread that powers a political win. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her occupation changed from "author" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she says that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even see".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the murder itself – and the eponymous day experienced by the deceased with the killer and his companions. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what occurred as Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl 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 whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par