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The new book centers on individuals seeking new beginnings, attempting to leave behind addictions or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into willfully cynical through its repetitions. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the story. And yet, Kraus herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, since this presents as a different type of work – observational, authentically narrative. Yet it proves to be packed with the same dilemmas and approaches as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus began as an artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, transforming confessional female writing from humiliation into rebellion. She continued writing, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the letter form brought to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It follows that she currently desires to try out different types of content, looking outwards to external narratives, at a moment when she states that current political era turns intimate literature redundant.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning several time periods – each trapped by their backgrounds. We encounter the narrative about Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, moving from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a community long abandoned by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.

As a reader attracted to refined literature of the kind Kraus herself often avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.

As a reader drawn to crafted language of the variety that Kraus often disregards, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It possesses a novel degree of detail that makes room for small details, like the bucket that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into 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 notes here that she dislikes the enjoyment readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works comes back in the second segment. Catt is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist 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 "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she states that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the referenced day spent by the victim with the killer and his friends. The author possesses great source material, and knows hour by hour what happened when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, loitering fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt develops an obsession 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. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par