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The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with protagonists pursuing fresh starts, attempting to leave behind drugs or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into violence. Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the story. And yet, Kraus herself seems to be making her own fresh start, because this seems a different type of work – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. But then it turns out to be laden with the recurring issues and aesthetics as earlier books.

From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus started out as an artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming personal female narrative from humiliation into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels did not possess the power and directness that the correspondence format brought to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It follows that she presently aims to try out new kinds of material, looking outwards to external narratives, at a moment when she states that current political era makes confessional writing obsolete.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering several time periods – each trapped by their pasts. We encounter the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, moving from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a town long abandoned by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.

For this reader attracted to honed writing of the type the author herself often avoids, I was seduced by the narrative style of the initial segment.

As someone who reads who appreciates honed writing of the variety that Kraus tends to eschew, I was won over by the literary tone of the opening segment. It possesses a novel degree of detail that accommodates small details, like the bucket that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this different style could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books returns in the middle section. The protagonist is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between two different states, failing to help her husband control his drinking. She feels helpless as her spouse moves between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a society propelled by the anger and fear that drives Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. 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 exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her online critics would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the murder itself – and the titular day spent by the murdered individual with the killer and his companions. Kraus has excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, loitering getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partially because of Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par