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This latest work is populated with characters seeking fresh starts, attempting to leave behind drugs or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into intentionally weary through recurring use. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the narrative. And yet, Kraus herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, because this presents as a different type of work – fact-based, authentically narrative. Yet it turns out to be filled with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

Kraus began as an artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, elevating intimate women's literature from abjection into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the power and directness that the letter form imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a renegade artist who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It makes sense that she presently aims to experiment with different types of content, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a period in which she asserts that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative redundant.

Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering several time periods – none able to break free from their histories. The book includes the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, relocating from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the character of Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a community mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader attracted to polished prose of the kind the author herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the first section.

Being a reader drawn to precise prose of the kind that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. There is a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates trivial aspects, like the container that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this different style could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she resents the enjoyment audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her idol Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels reasserts itself in the central part. Catt Greene is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between two different states, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a environment propelled by the rage and anxiety that powers a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day experienced by the deceased with the killer and his associates. Kraus utilizes great source material, and knows hour by hour what happened when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

Fascination and Incompletion

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to go further into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par