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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on individuals chasing after new beginnings, attempting to leave behind drugs or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into violence. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", making it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the text. And yet, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, since this seems a novel form of writing – observational, authentically narrative. But then it turns out to be laden with the same dilemmas and styles as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book

Chris Kraus began as an creative who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, elevating personal female narrative from abjection into defiance. She kept producing books, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the power and directness that the letter form infused into the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It is logical that she currently desires to try out different types of content, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a period in which she claims that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing redundant.

Three Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning three generations – none able to break free from their backgrounds. The book includes the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, moving from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. There is the account of Kraus, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband her husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a town long abandoned by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader drawn to polished prose of the kind Kraus herself often avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section.

As a reader drawn to crafted language of the style that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that accommodates minutiae, like the pail that the young Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, aided by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like piece candy". She tells Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this new voice could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works comes back in the second segment. Catt is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between two different states, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a world fueled by the rage and anxiety that powers Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "author" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she states that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the actual killing – and the referenced day experienced by the victim with the perpetrator and his companions. The author possesses great source material, and details moment by moment what transpired when Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, wandering about getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partly through Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par