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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on characters seeking new beginnings, struggling to escape substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into aggression. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", rendering it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the narrative. At the same time, Kraus herself is embarking on her own fresh start, as this seems a novel form of writing – fact-based, authentically narrative. Yet it proves to be laden with the familiar conflicts and approaches as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book

Chris Kraus began as an visual artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting personal female narrative from abjection into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the power and directness that the epistolary style imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It is logical that she currently desires to explore new kinds of material, turning outward to other people's stories, at a time when she states that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative redundant.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing three generations – each trapped by their histories. We encounter the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, moving from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the character of Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a town long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.

As a reader fond of honed writing of the kind Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the narrative style of the first section.

As a reader who appreciates honed writing of the style that Kraus usually avoids, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the first section. There is a novel degree of detail that makes room for small details, like the container that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, assisted by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this different style could last out the book. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works comes back in the central part. The protagonist is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse cycles through low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a society driven by the rage and anxiety that drives a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on social media, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. In a moment she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Killing Story

Then we reach to the actual killing – and the titular day spent by the victim with the murderer and his companions. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what occurred as Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, loitering fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par