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This latest work is populated with characters pursuing new beginnings, trying to break free from substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into violence. The author frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", making it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the narrative. And yet, Kraus herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, because this seems a novel form of writing – observational, authentically narrative. But then it proves to be laden with the familiar conflicts and approaches as earlier books.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus was originally an visual artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, converting personal female narrative from abjection into assassination. She continued writing, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the power and directness that the letter form infused into the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a renegade artist who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It follows that she now wants to try out different types of content, looking outwards to external narratives, at a period in which she claims that current political era makes confessional writing redundant.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning three generations – each trapped by their backgrounds. The book includes the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, relocating from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a town largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader drawn to honed writing of the sort Kraus typically rejects, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the first section.

As someone who reads drawn to honed writing of the kind that Kraus usually avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial part. It possesses a fresh level of observation that allows space for minutiae, like the container that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, aided by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". She tells the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this different style could last out the book. Kraus says here that she resents 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 idol writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works returns in the second segment. The protagonist is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as her spouse transitions between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a world propelled by the rage and anxiety that powers an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on social media, her professional designation altered from "author" to "property owner" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she states that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the eponymous day passed by the victim with the killer and his friends. Kraus has excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, loitering getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partly through the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par