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The new book features protagonists chasing after fresh starts, struggling to escape addictions or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the story. At the same time, Kraus herself is embarking on her own fresh start, as this appears a new kind of book – fact-based, authentically narrative. However it proves to be packed with the same dilemmas and styles as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus started out as an artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming confessional female writing from abjection into defiance. She continued writing, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels lacked the impact and rawness that the epistolary style brought to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a renegade artist who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It is logical that she now wants to explore different types of content, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a time when she claims that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering multiple eras – each trapped by their pasts. We encounter the story of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a community mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader fond of polished prose of the type the author herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the initial segment.

Being a reader who appreciates honed writing of the style that Kraus herself often disregards, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening segment. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates trivial aspects, like the bucket that the young Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, helped by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like hard candy". She tells Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the pleasure audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels reasserts itself in the middle section. The protagonist is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as her spouse cycles through underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a world propelled by the anger and fear that underpins a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she says that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the eponymous day experienced by the victim with the murderer and his associates. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, 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 was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, loitering getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt develops an obsession by the story, 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. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par