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This latest work features characters pursuing fresh starts, attempting to leave behind drugs or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. The author often employs the phrase "fresh start", rendering it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the text. Meanwhile, the author herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, since this presents as a new kind of book – observational, truly literary. But then it reveals itself to be packed with the familiar conflicts and styles as earlier books.

From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book

Chris Kraus started out as an artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, elevating confessional female writing from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the letter form imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It makes sense that she presently aims to experiment with fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a time when she states that current political era renders personal narrative redundant.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering three generations – none able to break free from their histories. We encounter the story of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, moving from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the character of Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a town largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader drawn to honed writing of the sort Kraus typically rejects, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the initial segment.

As someone who reads who appreciates crafted language of the variety that the author often disregards, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. There is a fresh level of observation that accommodates trivial aspects, like the container that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's story 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 continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she resents the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books returns in the second segment. Catt is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a society propelled by the anger and fear that underpins an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even see".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the eponymous day passed by the deceased with the perpetrator and his associates. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what occurred as Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, loitering getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.

Fascination and Incompletion

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partially because of Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par