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This latest work features characters pursuing new beginnings, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into conflict. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into intentionally weary through recurring use. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the text. And yet, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, since this seems a different type of work – fact-based, truly literary. But then it turns out to be packed with the familiar conflicts and styles as her previous works.

From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work

The writer was originally an visual artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, elevating intimate women's literature from humiliation into assassination. She continued writing, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the power and directness that the epistolary style infused into the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a maverick maker who had become a major property owner, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It follows that she presently aims to try out fresh narrative sources, turning outward to external narratives, at a time when she claims that current political era renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Three Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning three generations – each trapped by their pasts. The book includes the tale of Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, moving from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a community largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.

For this reader fond of refined literature of the sort Kraus typically rejects, I was captivated by the narrative style of the opening part.

Being a reader who favors precise prose of the kind that Kraus usually avoids, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the first section. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that makes room for minutiae, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, assisted by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". She tells Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this different style could last out the book. The author states here that she dislikes the satisfaction audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her hero Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works comes back in the central part. The protagonist is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help her husband control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as her spouse transitions between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a world driven by the rage and anxiety that underpins Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. At one point she says that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an America that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Homicide Account

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the referenced day passed by the victim with the perpetrator and his associates. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what occurred as a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.

Fascination and Incompletion

The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par