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The new book features characters pursuing fresh starts, struggling to escape substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", making it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the story. At the same time, she appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, as this seems a different type of work – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. Yet it turns out to be laden with the familiar conflicts and approaches as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

Kraus was originally an creative who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating personal female narrative from self-debasement into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the impact and rawness that the letter form brought to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a maverick maker who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It is logical that she currently desires to try out fresh narrative sources, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a period in which she asserts that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing obsolete.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing several time periods – all unable to escape their histories. The book includes the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, relocating from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the guise of Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a locality long abandoned by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

From my perspective as a reader fond of polished prose of the type Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section.

As a reader who appreciates crafted language of the variety that Kraus often disregards, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It possesses a novel degree of detail that accommodates small details, like the bucket that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a great plaything", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like sweet treats". She tells Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was fated to feel let down when I wished this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she resents the pleasure readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her idol author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works comes back in the central part. Catt Greene is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as her spouse transitions between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a society driven by the rage and anxiety that underpins Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her occupation changed from "author" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an America that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the referenced day passed by the deceased with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, wandering about getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to go further into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par