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The new book features individuals chasing after fresh starts, trying to break free from drugs or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", making it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the text. And yet, Kraus herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, as this presents as a new kind of book – observational, authentically narrative. But then it turns out to be filled with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as past novels.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus started out as an visual artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, converting confessional female writing from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the power and directness that the correspondence format brought to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a renegade artist who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It makes sense that she now wants to explore new kinds of material, turning outward to other people's stories, at a period in which she asserts that current political era makes confessional writing obsolete.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning three generations – each trapped by their backgrounds. We encounter the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, relocating from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a locality mostly forsaken by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

From my perspective as a reader drawn to polished prose of the sort the author herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening part.

As a reader drawn to precise prose of the kind that the author usually avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening segment. There is a fresh level of observation that makes room for minutiae, like the container that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, helped by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this fresh tone could last out the book. The author states here that she resents the pleasure readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her hero Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels comes back in the second segment. The protagonist is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid her husband manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a society fueled by the hostility and dread that underpins Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "property owner" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she says that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".

The Homicide Account

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the referenced day passed by the victim with the killer and his friends. The author possesses great source material, and knows hour by hour what happened when Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, loitering fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par