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This latest work features characters chasing after fresh starts, trying to break free from substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into willfully cynical through recurring use. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the story. And yet, the author herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, because this presents as a different type of work – observational, authentically narrative. Yet it turns out to be filled with the recurring issues and styles as her previous works.

From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book

Kraus started out as an visual artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, transforming confessional female writing from self-debasement into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the power and directness that the letter form imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a maverick maker who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It makes sense that she now wants to explore new kinds of material, looking outwards to external narratives, at a moment when she states that current political era renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing three generations – none able to break free from their histories. There is the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, transitioning from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the guise of Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a locality mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.

As a reader attracted to refined literature of the kind Kraus often avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section.

As a reader who favors precise prose of the kind that Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening segment. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates minutiae, like the pail that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, helped by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this new voice could last out the book. The author states here that she is annoyed by the pleasure audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the unpolished style she has in common with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works returns in the central part. The protagonist is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between two different states, failing to help her husband manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a society propelled by the hostility and dread that powers a political win. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her occupation changed from "author" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Murder Narrative

Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day spent by the deceased with the murderer and his friends. Kraus utilizes great source material, and knows hour by hour what happened when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, loitering getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who comes alive in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par