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The new book is populated with characters chasing after new beginnings, trying to break free from drugs or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into willfully cynical through recurring use. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the text. At the same time, the author herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, as this appears a novel form of writing – documentarian, authentically narrative. However it proves to be laden with the recurring issues and aesthetics as past novels.

From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus began as an visual artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, elevating intimate women's literature from abjection into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It is logical that she presently aims to try out different types of content, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a time when she claims that current political era makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning three generations – all unable to escape their pasts. The book includes the narrative about Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a locality mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader attracted to polished prose of the sort Kraus herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial segment.

Being a reader drawn to honed writing of the kind that Kraus herself often disregards, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for minutiae, like the pail that the young Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a great plaything", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she dislikes the enjoyment readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels returns in the second segment. The protagonist is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as her spouse cycles through low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a world propelled by the hostility and dread that powers an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her occupation changed from "author" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she says that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her social media opponents would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the referenced day experienced by the murdered individual with the murderer and his associates. The author possesses excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what transpired when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partly through the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par