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The new book centers on characters chasing after clean slates, attempting to leave behind drugs or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the story. Meanwhile, Kraus herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, as this seems a novel form of writing – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. But then it reveals itself to be packed with the recurring issues and aesthetics as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

The writer began as an visual artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, converting personal female narrative from humiliation into assassination. She kept producing books, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the power and directness that the correspondence format brought to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a maverick maker who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It follows that she now wants to explore different types of content, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a time when she asserts that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature unnecessary.

Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering several time periods – all unable to escape their backgrounds. We encounter the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a town largely deserted by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader fond of refined literature of the kind the author herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the initial segment.

As someone who reads who appreciates precise prose of the variety that Kraus often disregards, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial part. It possesses a fresh level of observation that makes room for small details, like the container that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a great plaything", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech 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."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was fated to feel let down when I wished this new voice could continue through the novel. The author states here that she dislikes the pleasure audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she echoes from her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works reasserts itself in the central part. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a society driven by the rage and anxiety that powers Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "author" to "property owner" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the murder itself – and the eponymous day experienced by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what happened when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, wandering about getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par