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This latest work centers on protagonists pursuing new beginnings, trying to break free from drugs or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", making it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the story. Meanwhile, the author herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, because this seems a new kind of book – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. But then it turns out to be laden with the familiar conflicts and styles as earlier books.

From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus started out as an creative who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, elevating intimate women's literature from abjection into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the power and directness that the letter form brought to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a maverick maker who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It is logical that she presently aims to try out different types of content, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a moment when she asserts that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative obsolete.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering several time periods – each trapped by their backgrounds. The book includes the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, moving from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a locality largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader drawn to honed writing of the sort Kraus herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

As a reader drawn to honed writing of the kind that Kraus herself often disregards, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It possesses a fresh level of observation that allows space for small details, like the pail that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, helped by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". She tells the tale of Emma 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 wished this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books returns in the middle section. The protagonist is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a society propelled by the anger and fear that drives Trump's victory. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. At one point she says that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even see".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the murder itself – and the titular day experienced by the victim with the murderer and his companions. Kraus has great source material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who gains dimension partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par