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This latest work centers on characters seeking clean slates, trying to break free from substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", making it intentionally weary through recurring use. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the story. And yet, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, because this appears a new kind of book – observational, authentically narrative. Yet it proves to be filled with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as past novels.

From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book

Chris Kraus was originally an artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, elevating intimate women's literature from abjection into rebellion. She continued writing, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels missed the impact and rawness that the correspondence format imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a maverick maker who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It is logical that she currently desires to try out different types of content, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a period in which she states that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing obsolete.

Three Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering multiple eras – each trapped by their pasts. The book includes the story of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, transitioning from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a community long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.

From my perspective as a reader attracted to refined literature of the sort Kraus often avoids, I was seduced by the narrative style of the opening part.

As a reader who favors crafted language of the kind that Kraus herself often disregards, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the first section. It possesses a fresh level of observation that accommodates trivial aspects, like the pail that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the pleasure audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the unpolished style she echoes from her idol author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels returns in the central part. Catt is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between two different states, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a society fueled by the anger and fear that drives Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. At one point she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the actual killing – and the eponymous day passed by the victim with the murderer and his friends. The author possesses excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, loitering fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who comes alive partly through the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par