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The new book centers on protagonists chasing after fresh starts, trying to break free from drugs or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the story. And yet, she seems to be making her individual reinvention, as this seems a different type of work – observational, genuinely novelistic. Yet it turns out to be laden with the same dilemmas and styles as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book

Chris Kraus began as an creative who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating personal female narrative from self-debasement into assassination. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels missed the power and directness that the letter form brought to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It follows that she now wants to try out different types of content, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a time when she asserts that current political era renders personal narrative obsolete.

Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering three generations – all unable to escape their pasts. We encounter the tale of Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the guise of Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a community long abandoned by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader drawn to honed writing of the type Kraus herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

As a reader who appreciates honed writing of the style that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the first section. There is a fresh level of observation that allows space for trivial aspects, like the container that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the pleasure audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels returns in the second segment. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a society driven by the hostility and dread that drives an electoral success. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "novelist" 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 researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Murder Narrative

Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the titular day spent by the deceased with the killer and his friends. The author possesses excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, mooching around getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, 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 explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par