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The new book centers on characters seeking fresh starts, struggling to escape addictions or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into aggression. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", rendering it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the text. Meanwhile, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, because this appears a different type of work – observational, authentically narrative. But then it turns out to be filled with the familiar conflicts and styles as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

Kraus started out as an visual artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating intimate women's literature from self-debasement into assassination. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the impact and rawness that the letter form brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It follows that she presently aims to experiment with different types of content, turning outward to external narratives, at a time when she states that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative redundant.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning three generations – none able to break free from their histories. There is the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, relocating from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a locality mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader attracted to polished prose of the kind the author herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

Being a reader who appreciates crafted language of the style that the author tends to eschew, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that accommodates trivial aspects, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". She tells Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this different style could last out the book. The author states here that she resents the satisfaction readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt Greene is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid her husband manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a world propelled by the hostility and dread that drives Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "landlord" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even see".

The Murder Narrative

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the eponymous day passed by the deceased with the murderer and his friends. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what occurred as the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, wandering about getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par