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The new book is populated with characters pursuing new beginnings, attempting to leave behind drugs or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into violence. Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", rendering it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the text. At the same time, she appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, because this presents as a different type of work – fact-based, authentically narrative. However it proves to be filled with the recurring issues and styles as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus started out as an creative who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming confessional female writing from self-debasement into assassination. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the letter form imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a maverick maker who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It follows that she now wants to experiment with different types of content, looking outwards to external narratives, at a time when she claims that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing redundant.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning several time periods – each trapped by their pasts. There is the tale of Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, moving from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a locality largely deserted by liberal ideals only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.

As a reader attracted to polished prose of the sort Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the narrative style of the first section.

As someone who reads who favors crafted language of the kind that the author usually avoids, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the first section. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the young Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, assisted by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this different style could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the satisfaction readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her idol Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels reasserts itself in the central part. Catt Greene is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as her spouse cycles through underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a world fueled by the anger and fear that drives a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her occupation changed from "author" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Homicide Account

Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the referenced day spent by the deceased with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par