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The new book centers on protagonists seeking new beginnings, trying to break free from addictions or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into violence. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", making it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the story. At the same time, Kraus herself seems to be making her own fresh start, because this presents as a new kind of book – observational, genuinely novelistic. Yet it turns out to be filled with the same dilemmas and approaches as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus started out as an artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating confessional female writing from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It makes sense that she currently desires to explore new kinds of material, looking outwards to external narratives, at a period in which she claims that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering multiple eras – none able to break free from their pasts. We encounter the story of Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, relocating from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a locality mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

For this reader drawn to honed writing of the kind Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the narrative style of the initial segment.

As someone who reads drawn to crafted language of the kind that Kraus herself often disregards, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that accommodates minutiae, like the container that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like hard candy". She tells Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "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 different style 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 committed to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works returns in the central part. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between two different states, failing to help her husband control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse cycles through underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a society propelled by the hostility and dread that underpins an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day experienced by the victim with the killer and his associates. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when 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 with her companions, loitering having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par