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This latest work centers on characters pursuing clean slates, trying to break free from drugs or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into aggression. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", making it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the narrative. At the same time, she seems to be making her personal new beginning, as this appears a new kind of book – observational, genuinely novelistic. But then it reveals itself to be filled with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book

The writer was originally an visual artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, transforming personal female narrative from self-debasement into assassination. She continued writing, but the following three engaging and challenging novels missed the power and directness that the epistolary style brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a renegade artist who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It is logical that she presently aims to experiment with new kinds of material, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a moment when she states that current political era makes confessional writing redundant.

Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering multiple eras – none able to break free from their histories. There is the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, relocating from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a town largely deserted by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.

As a reader drawn to refined literature of the kind the author herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.

As a reader drawn to honed writing of the kind that the author tends to eschew, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the initial part. There is a fresh level of observation that makes room for minutiae, like the container that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the opening of the book, aided by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this fresh tone could last out the book. The author states here that she dislikes the satisfaction readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she shares with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels reasserts itself in the central part. Catt is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between two different states, unable to aid her husband curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a world propelled by the hostility and dread that powers Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her occupation changed from "author" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. At one point she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the titular day experienced by the victim with the killer and his companions. The author possesses great source material, and details moment by moment what happened when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partially because of Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par