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This latest work centers on individuals pursuing fresh starts, trying to break free from drugs or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into conflict. Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", rendering it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the text. And yet, she appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, since this seems a novel form of writing – fact-based, authentically narrative. Yet it proves to be laden with the same dilemmas and styles as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book

Chris Kraus was originally an artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating confessional female writing from humiliation into rebellion. She continued writing, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels lacked the power and directness that the letter form infused into the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a renegade artist who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It makes sense that she now wants to experiment with different types of content, turning outward to other people's stories, at a time when she states that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering three generations – all unable to escape their histories. The book includes the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, transitioning from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a locality largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

For this reader drawn to polished prose of the kind Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening part.

Being a reader who favors precise prose of the kind that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. There is a fresh level of observation that allows space for minutiae, like the bucket that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, assisted by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this different style could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the pleasure readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the unpolished style she echoes from her hero Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt Greene is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a environment fueled by the anger and fear that powers a political win. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "property owner" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the actual killing – and the referenced day experienced by the victim with the murderer and his associates. The author possesses great source material, and knows hour by hour what happened when Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who gains dimension partly through Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par