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The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with individuals pursuing new beginnings, trying to break free from drugs or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", rendering it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the story. At the same time, she appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, as this seems a new kind of book – fact-based, authentically narrative. However it turns out to be laden with the recurring issues and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus started out as an artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating confessional female writing from abjection into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the power and directness that the letter form brought to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a renegade artist who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It makes sense that she now wants to experiment with new kinds of material, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a period in which she states that current political era renders personal narrative redundant.

Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering multiple eras – none able to break free from their histories. There is the tale of Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, moving from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a town long abandoned by liberal ideals only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader attracted to honed writing of the sort Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.

Being a reader who appreciates precise prose of the variety that Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial part. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that accommodates small details, like the container that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as her spouse cycles through low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a environment propelled by the rage and anxiety that drives a political win. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the titular day passed by the victim with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what happened when Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, loitering having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt develops an obsession by the story, 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 personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par