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This latest work centers on individuals chasing after new beginnings, trying to break free from addictions or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into violence. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", rendering it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the narrative. And yet, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, since this appears a novel form of writing – observational, authentically narrative. However it proves to be packed with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

Kraus was originally an creative who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming confessional female writing from humiliation into assassination. She continued writing, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the correspondence format brought to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It follows that she presently aims to try out new kinds of material, looking outwards to external narratives, at a time when she claims that current political era turns intimate literature obsolete.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing multiple eras – each trapped by their pasts. The book includes the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, moving from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband a man named Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a town mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.

As a reader fond of refined literature of the type Kraus often avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section.

As someone who reads drawn to honed writing of the style that Kraus often disregards, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the first section. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, helped by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a great plaything", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling 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 hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her hero Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels returns in the middle section. Catt is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a world propelled by the anger and fear that underpins Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on social media, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".

The Murder Narrative

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the titular day passed by the deceased with the murderer and his friends. Kraus has great source material, and details moment by moment what transpired when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, mooching around getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par