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This latest work centers on protagonists pursuing new beginnings, struggling to escape addictions or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into conflict. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", making it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the text. At the same time, she seems to be making her individual reinvention, since this appears a novel form of writing – fact-based, truly literary. But then it turns out to be laden with the recurring issues and styles as earlier books.

From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book

Kraus was originally an artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting confessional female writing from abjection into assassination. She continued writing, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a nonconformist creator who had become a major property owner, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It makes sense that she currently desires to try out fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a moment when she states that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing three generations – none able to break free from their backgrounds. The book includes the story of Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, moving from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. There is the account of Kraus, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a community long abandoned by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.

As a reader attracted to honed writing of the type the author herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the opening part.

As a reader drawn to honed writing of the kind that Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial part. There is a novel degree of detail that allows space for minutiae, like the bucket that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, helped by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a great plaything", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like sweet treats". The author narrates the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this different style could continue through the novel. The author states here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her idol Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books returns in the second segment. The protagonist is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help her husband curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a world propelled by the hostility and dread that powers Trump's victory. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. In a moment she says that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even see".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the referenced day passed by the victim with the murderer and his associates. Kraus utilizes great source material, and details moment by moment what transpired when Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, loitering having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who comes alive partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par