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The new book features protagonists chasing after fresh starts, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into aggression. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", rendering it willfully cynical through recurring use. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the story. Meanwhile, the author herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, because this appears a novel form of writing – observational, truly literary. But then it proves to be packed with the recurring issues and styles as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

The writer was originally an artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating personal female narrative from abjection into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style brought to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a renegade artist who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It makes sense that she presently aims to explore fresh narrative sources, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a period in which she asserts that current political era renders personal narrative redundant.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering three generations – all unable to escape their backgrounds. There is the narrative about Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. There is the account of Kraus, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a locality mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader drawn to honed writing of the kind Kraus herself often avoids, I was captivated by the narrative style of the initial segment.

As someone who reads drawn to crafted language of the style that Kraus often disregards, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for small details, like the pail that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I wished this new voice could last out the book. Kraus says here that she dislikes the pleasure readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her idol Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books returns in the second segment. Catt Greene is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting her husband curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a world driven by the rage and anxiety that underpins Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "landlord" on a reference site. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she says that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the titular day passed by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus has great source material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, loitering fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

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 ethical reporting and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to go further into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par