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The new book features protagonists seeking fresh starts, struggling to escape addictions or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into violence. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into willfully cynical through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the text. And yet, she is embarking on her individual reinvention, because this presents as a new kind of book – documentarian, truly literary. However it proves to be laden with the recurring issues and styles as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus started out as an creative who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating personal female narrative from self-debasement into assassination. She continued writing, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the shock and immediacy that the letter form infused into the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a maverick maker who had become a major property owner, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It is logical that she presently aims to explore new kinds of material, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a time when she states that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing three generations – each trapped by their pasts. The book includes the story of Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, moving from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. There is the narrative of the author, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a town mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a short distance from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader attracted to polished prose of the kind Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the opening part.

As a reader who favors honed writing of the style that the author tends to eschew, I was won over by the literary tone of the initial part. There is a novel degree of detail that makes room for small details, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, assisted by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this fresh tone could last out the book. The author states here that she resents the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels reasserts itself in the middle section. The protagonist is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a environment fueled by the rage and anxiety that drives a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "author" to "landlord" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the titular day passed by the victim with the killer and his friends. Kraus has great source material, and knows hour by hour what happened when 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 shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to go further into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who comes alive partly through Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par