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This latest work features protagonists chasing after clean slates, trying to break free from substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into aggression. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", rendering it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the story. At the same time, Kraus herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, since this presents as a novel form of writing – observational, truly literary. Yet it turns out to be laden with the familiar conflicts and approaches as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

Kraus began as an visual artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming intimate women's literature from humiliation into defiance. She continued writing, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels lacked the power and directness that the letter form imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It is logical that she presently aims to explore fresh narrative sources, turning outward to external narratives, at a time when she claims that current political era turns intimate literature unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning three generations – all unable to escape their pasts. The book includes the story of Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, moving from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a community largely deserted by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader fond of refined literature of the kind the author herself often avoids, I was seduced by the narrative style of the opening part.

Being a reader drawn to precise prose of the style that the author often disregards, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for small details, like the bucket that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus says here that she resents the enjoyment readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt Greene is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse cycles through poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a society propelled by the anger and fear that powers an electoral success. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the actual killing – and the referenced day experienced by the murdered individual with the murderer and his companions. Kraus has great source material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par