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This latest work features individuals pursuing clean slates, trying to break free from addictions or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into violence. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the story. And yet, Kraus herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, because this presents as a novel form of writing – fact-based, truly literary. However it proves to be filled with the recurring issues and aesthetics as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus was originally an visual artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting confessional female writing from abjection into defiance. She continued writing, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels missed the power and directness that the letter form brought to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a maverick maker who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It makes sense that she now wants to try out different types of content, looking outwards to external narratives, at a time when she claims that current political era turns intimate literature redundant.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning three generations – each trapped by their pasts. We encounter the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a locality long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader fond of honed writing of the type Kraus typically rejects, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.

As someone who reads who appreciates precise prose of the style that the author tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial part. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates trivial aspects, like the bucket that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, helped by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a nice toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this different style could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the pleasure readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she echoes from her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels returns in the second segment. Catt Greene is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments 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 low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a world driven by the rage and anxiety that underpins a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "landlord" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. In a moment she states that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the referenced day spent by the murdered individual with the killer and his friends. Kraus has great source material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, mooching around getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par