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This latest work is populated with characters seeking fresh starts, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into violence. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", making it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the story. And yet, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, since this seems a different type of work – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. Yet it reveals itself to be laden with the recurring issues and approaches as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus started out as an visual artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, transforming personal female narrative from abjection into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels missed the impact and rawness that the correspondence format imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a maverick maker who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It is logical that she currently desires to explore fresh narrative sources, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a moment when she states that current political era turns intimate literature unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing multiple eras – all unable to escape their backgrounds. We encounter the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, moving from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. There is the account of Kraus, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a locality long abandoned by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

As a reader attracted to honed writing of the sort Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the opening part.

As someone who reads who favors crafted language of the kind that Kraus usually avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It possesses a novel degree of detail that makes room for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". She tells Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she resents the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels returns in the second segment. Catt Greene is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between two different states, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a society propelled by the anger and fear that drives Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. In a moment 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 social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".

The Homicide Account

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the titular day spent by the murdered individual with the killer and his companions. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, mooching around fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par