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The new book is populated with protagonists pursuing fresh starts, struggling to escape addictions or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into violence. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", making it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the text. Meanwhile, Kraus herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, since this seems a different type of work – fact-based, truly literary. Yet it turns out to be filled with the recurring issues and approaches as her previous works.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

The writer started out as an visual artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, converting confessional female writing from abjection into defiance. She continued writing, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the epistolary style brought to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a renegade artist who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It follows that she now wants to explore fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a time when she asserts that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative obsolete.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing multiple eras – none able to break free from their pasts. We encounter the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, moving from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a town long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

As a reader drawn to polished prose of the type the author herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the initial segment.

Being a reader who appreciates precise prose of the kind that Kraus often disregards, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial part. There is a novel degree of detail that makes room for minutiae, like the container that the young Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like sweet treats". She tells Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I wished this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she resents the pleasure readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works returns in the central part. Catt is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a environment fueled by the anger and fear that powers Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her online critics would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the titular day experienced by the deceased with the killer and his companions. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, loitering having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who gains dimension in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par