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The new book features characters chasing after fresh starts, trying to break free from substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into violence. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", making it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the narrative. At the same time, she 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 laden with the recurring issues and styles as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book

Chris Kraus was originally an visual artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming intimate women's literature from self-debasement into defiance. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the impact and rawness that the letter form brought to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a renegade artist who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It is logical that she currently desires to explore new kinds of material, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a period in which she asserts that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing multiple eras – all unable to escape their pasts. There is the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the character of Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a town mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

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

As a reader who favors precise prose of the kind that Kraus often disregards, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. There is a novel degree of detail that makes room for small details, like the pail that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, aided by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a nice toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus says here that she resents the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works returns in the second segment. The protagonist is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a world fueled by the rage and anxiety that powers a political win. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her occupation changed from "author" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. At one point she says that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".

The Homicide Account

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the titular day spent by the murdered individual with the killer and his associates. Kraus utilizes great source material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, mooching around fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to go further into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partly through the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par