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This latest work is populated with protagonists chasing after new beginnings, attempting to leave behind drugs or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into violence. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", rendering it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the narrative. And yet, she seems to be making her individual reinvention, since this presents as a novel form of writing – documentarian, truly literary. Yet it turns out to be filled with the familiar conflicts and styles as past novels.

From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book

Chris Kraus began as an visual artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, elevating personal female narrative from self-debasement into assassination. She continued writing, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the impact and rawness that the epistolary style infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a renegade artist who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It follows that she currently desires to experiment with fresh narrative sources, turning outward to other people's stories, at a period in which she states that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering multiple eras – none able to break free from their histories. The book includes the story of characters Emma and Jasper, based on 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 addict husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a town long abandoned by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader attracted to honed writing of the type Kraus herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

As a reader who favors precise prose of the kind that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice 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 pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, helped by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was fated to feel let down when I wished this different style could persist to the end. The author states here that she resents the enjoyment audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works returns in the central part. The protagonist is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between two different states, unable to aid her husband control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a world fueled by the rage and anxiety that drives Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her occupation changed from "writer" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she says that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her online critics would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the referenced day passed by the victim with the murderer and his companions. Kraus has great source material, and details moment by moment what transpired when Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, wandering about fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par