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The new book features characters chasing after fresh starts, attempting to leave behind addictions or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", making it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the text. At the same time, she appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, since this appears a new kind of book – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. Yet it turns out to be laden with the recurring issues and styles as her previous works.

From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book

Chris Kraus began as an creative who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, converting intimate women's literature from abjection into rebellion. She continued writing, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels missed the shock and immediacy that the letter form infused into the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It makes sense that she now wants to try out fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a time when she claims that current political era makes confessional writing obsolete.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning three generations – none able to break free from their backgrounds. There is the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, moving from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the character of Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a town long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

From my perspective as a reader fond of polished prose of the sort the author herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

As a reader drawn to crafted language of the kind that Kraus usually avoids, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that accommodates trivial aspects, like the bucket that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she resents the satisfaction readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books comes back in the second segment. Catt Greene is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between two different states, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a society fueled by the rage and anxiety that powers Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "author" to "landlord" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she says that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an America that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the titular day experienced by the victim with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, wandering about getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par