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This latest work centers on protagonists chasing after clean slates, attempting to leave behind addictions or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into conflict. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", rendering it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the story. Meanwhile, she is embarking on her own fresh start, since this presents as a novel form of writing – fact-based, truly literary. However it proves to be filled with the familiar conflicts and styles as her previous works.

From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book

Kraus began as an visual artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming intimate women's literature from self-debasement into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the letter form infused into the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a maverick maker who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It is logical that she presently aims to experiment with fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to external narratives, at a period in which she states that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering multiple eras – all unable to escape their backgrounds. We encounter the tale of Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, transitioning from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. There is the narrative of the author, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a town mostly forsaken by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

As a reader fond of honed writing of the kind the author herself often avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section.

As a reader drawn to crafted language of the style that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was won over by the literary tone of the first section. It possesses a fresh level of observation that makes room for trivial aspects, like the container that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she dislikes the enjoyment audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she has in common with her hero Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books reasserts itself in the central part. Catt Greene is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a environment driven by the hostility and dread that underpins a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she says that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the actual killing – and the referenced day spent by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus utilizes great source material, and details moment by moment what occurred as a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, wandering about fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.

Fascination and Incompletion

The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partially because of Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par