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The new book features individuals pursuing clean slates, struggling to escape substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into violence. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", making it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the narrative. Meanwhile, she is embarking on her own fresh start, since this presents as a novel form of writing – fact-based, truly literary. But then it proves to be laden with the familiar conflicts and styles as her previous works.

From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus was originally an creative who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, transforming personal female narrative from humiliation into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels lacked the power and directness that the letter form imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a renegade artist who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It makes sense that she now wants to explore different types of content, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a period in which she states that current political era renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning three generations – all unable to escape their pasts. We encounter the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, moving from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the character of Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a town mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

As a reader drawn to polished prose of the kind the author herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

As someone who reads who appreciates precise prose of the variety that the author tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for trivial aspects, like the pail that the young Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the pleasure audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she echoes from her hero Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a society fueled by the rage and anxiety that powers a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. In a moment she states that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the referenced day spent by the victim with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus has great source material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par