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This latest work features individuals pursuing fresh starts, trying to break free from addictions or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", making it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the narrative. At the same time, Kraus herself is embarking on her own fresh start, because this presents as a new kind of book – fact-based, authentically narrative. Yet it proves to be packed with the same dilemmas and approaches as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book

Kraus was originally an artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming intimate women's literature from humiliation into defiance. She continued writing, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the letter form brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a maverick maker who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It is logical that she presently aims to experiment with new kinds of material, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a time when she states that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature obsolete.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering multiple eras – all unable to escape their backgrounds. The book includes the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, relocating from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the persona of Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a locality largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.

As a reader drawn to polished prose of the type the author herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the opening part.

Being a reader who favors crafted language of the style that the author often disregards, I was won over by the literary tone of the initial part. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates minutiae, like the container that the young Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like hard candy". She tells Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this new voice could continue through the novel. The author states here that she dislikes the satisfaction audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels comes back in the middle section. The protagonist is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul moves between underfunded jobs 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 a platform, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "landlord" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she says that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".

The Homicide Account

Then we reach to the actual killing – and the referenced day experienced by the murdered individual with the killer and his friends. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what transpired 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, loitering getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par