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The new book is populated with individuals chasing after clean slates, struggling to escape drugs or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", rendering it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the story. Meanwhile, the author herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, as this presents as a novel form of writing – documentarian, truly literary. However it turns out to be laden with the recurring issues and approaches as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus was originally an creative who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, transforming personal female narrative from abjection into rebellion. She continued writing, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style infused into the voice 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 much discussion on real estate deals. It makes sense that she presently aims to experiment with fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a time when she claims that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature obsolete.

Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning multiple eras – none able to break free from their pasts. We encounter the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, relocating from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a locality mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader fond of refined literature of the type the author herself often avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

As someone who reads drawn to crafted language of the kind that the author usually avoids, I was won over by the literary tone of the first section. There is a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the young Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". She tells the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books comes back in the second segment. Catt Greene is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse moves between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a society propelled by the hostility and dread that underpins Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her occupation changed from "writer" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. In a moment she says that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an America that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the murder itself – and the titular day experienced by the deceased with the murderer and his companions. Kraus has great source material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, wandering about getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partly through Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par