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This latest work is populated with protagonists pursuing fresh starts, attempting to leave behind addictions or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into conflict. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into intentionally weary through its repetitions. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the text. At the same time, Kraus herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, as this presents as a novel form of writing – documentarian, authentically narrative. However it proves to be packed with the recurring issues and approaches as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

The writer began as an visual artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming intimate women's literature from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels missed the power and directness that the letter form infused into the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a renegade artist who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It is logical that she currently desires to experiment with different types of content, turning outward to other people's stories, at a moment when she states that current political era makes confessional writing obsolete.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering multiple eras – all unable to escape their pasts. We encounter the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, relocating from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a locality largely deserted by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader fond of polished prose of the sort the author herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the opening part.

As a reader who favors precise prose of the variety that Kraus herself often disregards, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the first section. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for minutiae, like the pail that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, helped by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's story with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this different style could persist to the end. The author states here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books comes back in the second segment. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting her husband curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a environment propelled by the hostility and dread that powers an electoral success. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the actual killing – and the referenced day spent by the victim with the killer and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what happened when Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied 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 boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes 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 the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par