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The new book features characters seeking clean slates, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into aggression. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the story. And yet, Kraus herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, because this presents as a different type of work – fact-based, authentically narrative. However it turns out to be laden with the recurring issues and styles as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book

Kraus began as an artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming confessional female writing from humiliation into rebellion. She continued writing, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the impact and rawness that the letter form imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It makes sense that she presently aims to experiment with different types of content, turning outward to other people's stories, at a time when she asserts that current political era turns intimate literature obsolete.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning multiple eras – each trapped by their pasts. The book includes the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, moving from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a locality long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader attracted to refined literature of the type Kraus herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the narrative style of the initial segment.

As a reader who appreciates crafted language of the style that Kraus often disregards, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for small details, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, assisted by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she resents the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books returns in the second segment. The protagonist is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a society driven by the anger and fear that underpins Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her occupation changed from "author" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. In a moment she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the referenced day passed by the murdered individual with the murderer and his friends. The author possesses excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, loitering having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par