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The new book features protagonists seeking clean slates, struggling to escape drugs or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", making it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the story. Meanwhile, the author herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, as this appears a novel form of writing – fact-based, truly literary. Yet it proves to be packed with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

Kraus began as an artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming personal female narrative from humiliation into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the power and directness that the epistolary style brought to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It follows that she presently aims to try out new kinds of material, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a moment when she asserts that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing obsolete.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning multiple eras – all unable to escape their pasts. There is the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, moving from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband her husband Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a locality long abandoned by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.

For this reader drawn to refined literature of the sort Kraus tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.

As someone who reads who appreciates crafted language of the variety that the author often disregards, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the initial part. There is a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for minutiae, like the bucket that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, assisted by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a great plaything", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". She tells Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this fresh tone could persist to the end. The author states here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works comes back in the second segment. Catt is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a society driven by the rage and anxiety that underpins an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her occupation changed from "author" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. At one point she states that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the titular day experienced by the murdered individual with the killer and his associates. Kraus utilizes great source material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, wandering about getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par