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This latest work features protagonists seeking fresh starts, trying to break free from drugs or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. The author often employs the phrase "fresh start", rendering it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the narrative. Meanwhile, Kraus herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, as this seems a novel form of writing – observational, genuinely novelistic. Yet it proves to be laden with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus started out as an artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting personal female narrative from humiliation into defiance. She continued writing, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the epistolary style brought to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a renegade artist who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It makes sense that she presently aims to try out different types of content, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a moment when she asserts that current political era turns intimate literature obsolete.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering multiple eras – none able to break free from their backgrounds. We encounter the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, relocating from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a locality largely deserted by progressive politics only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.

For this reader attracted to refined literature of the type the author herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the opening part.

Being a reader who favors honed writing of the kind that Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It possesses a fresh level of observation that allows space for trivial aspects, like the pail that the young Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, helped by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this different style could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she dislikes the satisfaction readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels returns in the middle section. The protagonist is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting her husband curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a environment propelled by the rage and anxiety that powers an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. In a moment she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her online critics would not understand, would not even see".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the eponymous day spent by the victim with the murderer and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what happened when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, wandering about fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to go further into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who comes alive partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par