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The new book is populated with protagonists seeking clean slates, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into conflict. The author often employs the phrase "clean slate", rendering it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the story. And yet, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, as this presents as a different type of work – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. However it turns out to be filled with the same dilemmas and approaches as earlier books.

From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus was originally an visual artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating intimate women's literature from abjection into defiance. She kept producing books, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a maverick maker who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It is logical that she currently desires to try out new kinds of material, turning outward to external narratives, at a moment when she asserts that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing redundant.

Multiple 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 pasts. We encounter the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the character of Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a community largely deserted by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

As a reader drawn to refined literature of the kind Kraus typically rejects, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the first section.

As a reader who favors crafted language of the kind that the author often disregards, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the initial part. There is a fresh level of observation that makes room for minutiae, like the pail that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, aided by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a great plaything", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this new voice could last out the book. Kraus says here that she resents the satisfaction audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books returns in the central part. The protagonist is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between two different states, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a world driven by the anger and fear that powers an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. At one point she says that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Murder Narrative

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the eponymous day experienced by the murdered individual with the murderer and his associates. The author possesses excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what happened when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, wandering about fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partly through Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par