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The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters pursuing clean slates, struggling to escape addictions or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into violence. The author frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", making 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 text. And yet, the author herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, because this seems a different type of work – observational, genuinely novelistic. Yet it turns out to be laden with the recurring issues and approaches as past novels.

From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus was originally an visual artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, converting confessional female writing from self-debasement into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the letter form infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It makes sense that she presently aims to try out different types of content, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a moment when she states that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature redundant.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing three generations – none able to break free from their backgrounds. We encounter the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, moving from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. There is the narrative of the author, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband her husband Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a town largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

As a reader fond of honed writing of the kind the author herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section.

As someone who reads who favors honed writing of the style that the author tends to eschew, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the first section. There is a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for minutiae, like the container that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, aided by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like hard candy". She tells the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this new voice could last out the book. The author states here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels comes back in the central part. Catt is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a environment fueled by the anger and fear that powers a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. The author still appears to be overly concerned 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 Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even see".

The Killing Story

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the eponymous day passed by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus has great source material, and knows hour by hour what happened when Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, loitering getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.

Fascination and Incompletion

The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par