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The new book is populated with characters seeking fresh starts, trying to break free from drugs or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into violence. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", rendering it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the text. Meanwhile, Kraus herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, as this appears a different type of work – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. Yet it proves to be filled with the same dilemmas and approaches as past novels.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus was originally an creative who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming intimate women's literature from self-debasement into rebellion. She continued writing, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the letter form imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It makes sense that she currently desires to experiment with different types of content, looking outwards to external narratives, at a time when she asserts that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning three generations – each trapped by their pasts. There is the story of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the character of Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a town mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a short distance from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader attracted to refined literature of the sort Kraus tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the first section.

As a reader who appreciates precise prose of the variety that the author usually avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section. It exhibits 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, assisted by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."

Frustration and Disruption

I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this fresh tone could continue through the novel. The author states here that she dislikes the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels returns in the second segment. Catt is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help her husband control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a environment propelled by the hostility and dread that underpins Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "author" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she says that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Murder Narrative

Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the titular day passed by the deceased with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what transpired when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par