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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on characters seeking clean slates, struggling to escape addictions or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into intentionally weary through its repetitions. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the narrative. At the same time, the author herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, as this appears a novel form of writing – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. However it proves to be packed with the familiar conflicts and styles as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

Kraus started out as an visual artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming confessional female writing from self-debasement into defiance. She continued writing, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It is logical that she currently desires to try out fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a period in which she asserts that current political era renders personal narrative obsolete.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning three generations – all unable to escape their pasts. We encounter the story of Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. There is the account of Kraus, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim 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 directionless individual by another in a locality largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader attracted to refined literature of the kind Kraus herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the opening part.

As someone who reads drawn to precise prose of the style that Kraus usually avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial part. There is a novel degree of detail that accommodates small details, like the container that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, aided by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a society fueled by the rage and anxiety that drives an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "novelist" 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 researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day experienced by the murdered individual with the murderer and his associates. The author possesses excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, wandering about getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to go further into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partly through the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par