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The new book centers on protagonists pursuing clean slates, struggling to escape substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into conflict. The author often employs the phrase "new beginning", rendering it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the story. And yet, Kraus herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, as this presents as a new kind of book – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. But then it proves to be laden with the recurring issues and approaches as her previous works.

From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus was originally an visual artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, elevating personal female narrative from humiliation into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels missed the power and directness that the letter form brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It follows that she now wants to try out new kinds of material, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a moment when she claims that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing three generations – each trapped by their histories. The book includes the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, transitioning from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the character of Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a town largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader drawn to honed writing of the sort Kraus typically rejects, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the opening part.

As a reader who favors precise prose of the style that Kraus usually avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates trivial aspects, like the pail that the young Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, helped by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a nice toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this different style could last out the book. Kraus says 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 shares with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books comes back in the middle section. The protagonist is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between two different states, failing to help her husband control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a society driven by the rage and anxiety that powers a political win. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her professional designation altered from "author" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she states that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an America that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the murder itself – and the referenced day passed by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his associates. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what transpired when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, mooching around getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par