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The new book features characters chasing after new beginnings, trying to break free from drugs or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into aggression. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", rendering it willfully cynical through recurring use. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the story. Meanwhile, the author herself seems to be making her own fresh start, because this appears a different type of work – observational, truly literary. However it turns out to be laden with the familiar conflicts and styles as earlier books.

From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic

The writer began as an artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, converting intimate women's literature from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a nonconformist creator who had become a major property owner, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It is logical that she presently aims to explore different types of content, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a time when she states that current political era renders personal narrative redundant.

Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing several time periods – all unable to escape their pasts. The book includes the tale of Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, moving from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the character of Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a town long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.

From my perspective as a reader fond of refined literature of the type the author herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.

As someone who reads who appreciates honed writing of the kind that the author tends to eschew, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the first section. There is a fresh level of observation that accommodates trivial aspects, like the pail that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, aided by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she resents the satisfaction readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the unpolished style she shares with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels returns in the second segment. The protagonist is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a environment driven by the hostility and dread that powers an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she says that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an America that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the actual killing – and the titular day experienced by the victim with the killer and his companions. The author possesses excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, mooching around getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who comes alive partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par