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This latest work features individuals pursuing fresh starts, struggling to escape drugs or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", rendering it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the narrative. Meanwhile, she appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, since this seems a new kind of book – observational, truly literary. However it turns out to be filled with the familiar conflicts and approaches as her previous works.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus began as an creative who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, transforming intimate women's literature from humiliation into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the following three engaging and challenging novels lacked the power and directness that the correspondence format infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It follows that she now wants to explore new kinds of material, looking outwards to external narratives, at a period in which she states that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative obsolete.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering three generations – none able to break free from their histories. The book includes the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, relocating from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a community largely deserted by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader drawn to honed writing of the sort Kraus often avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial segment.

As a reader who appreciates honed writing of the kind that Kraus often disregards, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the first section. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that makes room for trivial aspects, like the pail that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she resents the pleasure readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books returns in the middle section. Catt is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as her spouse moves between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a world fueled by the rage and anxiety that drives Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on social media, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. At one point she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the titular day passed by the victim with the murderer and his associates. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what transpired when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, mooching around fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to go further into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par