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The new book centers on individuals chasing after clean slates, trying to break free from addictions or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", rendering it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the story. And yet, she seems to be making her personal new beginning, as this appears a different type of work – fact-based, authentically narrative. Yet it turns out to be filled with the familiar conflicts and approaches as earlier books.

From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus began as an artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, converting personal female narrative from humiliation into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style brought to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a renegade artist who had turned into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It follows that she now wants to experiment with fresh narrative sources, turning outward to external narratives, at a moment when she asserts that current political era turns intimate literature redundant.

Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing several time periods – none able to break free from their pasts. The book includes the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, relocating from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a community largely deserted by progressive politics only a short distance from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader attracted to refined literature of the type the author herself often avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

As someone who reads who favors honed writing of the style that Kraus usually avoids, I was won over by the literary tone of the opening segment. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for minutiae, like the container that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". She tells the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."

Frustration and Disruption

I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she resents the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the unpolished style she shares with her hero Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books reasserts itself in the second segment. The protagonist is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a environment propelled by the anger and fear that drives a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her occupation changed from "writer" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she states that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the titular day passed by the victim with the murderer and his associates. Kraus utilizes great source material, and knows hour by hour what happened when Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, loitering having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to go further into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who comes alive partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par