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This latest work features characters chasing after clean slates, attempting to leave behind addictions or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", rendering it willfully cynical through recurring use. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the text. Meanwhile, Kraus herself is embarking on her own fresh start, as this seems a novel form of writing – observational, truly literary. But then it reveals itself to be packed with the same dilemmas and styles as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus was originally an visual artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting personal female narrative from self-debasement into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the letter form infused into the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a nonconformist creator who had become a major property owner, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It follows that she currently desires to explore different types of content, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a period in which she states that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering three generations – none able to break free from their backgrounds. We encounter the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, relocating from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a town mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader attracted to refined literature of the type the author herself often avoids, I was captivated by the narrative style of the initial segment.

As a reader who favors honed writing of the variety that Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It possesses a novel degree of detail that makes room for small details, like the bucket that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". She tells the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Frustration and Disruption

I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this different style could persist to the end. The author states here that she dislikes the enjoyment readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels comes back in the central part. The protagonist is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a world fueled by the anger and fear that drives Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on social media, her occupation changed from "writer" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. At one point she states that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the titular day experienced by the deceased with the murderer and his friends. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what occurred as Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, wandering about fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to go further into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par