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This latest work features protagonists pursuing new beginnings, attempting to leave behind drugs or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into aggression. The author often employs the phrase "new beginning", rendering it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the story. And yet, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, as this presents as a different type of work – fact-based, truly literary. But then it reveals itself to be filled with the recurring issues and aesthetics as past novels.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus was originally an artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting intimate women's literature from humiliation into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the following three engaging and challenging novels lacked the impact and rawness that the epistolary style infused into the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a maverick maker who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It follows that she currently desires to explore different types of content, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a time when she claims that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature redundant.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing several time periods – each trapped by their pasts. The book includes the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, relocating from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a locality mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader drawn to polished prose of the kind Kraus herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the opening part.

Being a reader who favors honed writing of the kind that the author tends to eschew, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It possesses a novel degree of detail that allows space for trivial aspects, like the container that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". She tells the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I wished this different style could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she dislikes the pleasure readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt Greene is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a environment driven by the hostility and dread that underpins an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her professional designation altered from "author" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she says that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the eponymous day spent by the deceased with the murderer and his associates. Kraus has great source material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, mooching around fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partially because of Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par