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The new book centers on protagonists pursuing clean slates, trying to break free from substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into violence. The author often employs the phrase "clean slate", making it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the story. And yet, Kraus herself is embarking on her own fresh start, since this appears a new kind of book – observational, truly literary. But then it reveals itself to be laden with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus was originally an creative who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, elevating confessional female writing from self-debasement into defiance. She continued writing, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels missed the impact and rawness that the correspondence format brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It follows that she now wants to try out fresh narrative sources, turning outward to other people's stories, at a period in which she states that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature redundant.

Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning three generations – none able to break free from their pasts. There is the story of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. 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 story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a community largely deserted by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader fond of honed writing of the type Kraus typically rejects, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

As a reader drawn to crafted language of the kind that Kraus usually avoids, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the first section. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for minutiae, like the bucket that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, helped by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the satisfaction audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the unpolished style she echoes from her hero author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books returns in the middle section. Catt is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse moves between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a society driven by the rage and anxiety that drives a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her occupation changed from "writer" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the titular day spent by the victim with the killer and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, loitering fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par