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The new book features characters chasing after clean slates, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. The author frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the narrative. At the same time, she is embarking on her personal new beginning, because this seems a different type of work – fact-based, truly literary. However it proves to be laden with the familiar conflicts and approaches as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus started out as an artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, elevating personal female narrative from self-debasement into defiance. She continued writing, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the power and directness that the letter form brought to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a renegade artist who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It follows that she currently desires to experiment with new kinds of material, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a period in which she asserts that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative redundant.

Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing multiple eras – all unable to escape their pasts. There is the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, transitioning from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a town long abandoned by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader attracted to polished prose of the kind Kraus herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the first section.

As a reader who appreciates crafted language of the kind that Kraus herself often disregards, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the first section. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that accommodates minutiae, like the pail that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, aided by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this fresh tone could continue through the novel. The author states here that she resents the satisfaction audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the unpolished style she shares with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels returns in the second segment. The protagonist is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a society fueled by the rage and anxiety that drives an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her listed profession modified from "author" to "landlord" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. In a moment she says that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her social media opponents would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the eponymous day spent by the murdered individual with the murderer and his associates. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what occurred as a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, mooching around getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par