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This latest work centers on characters seeking new beginnings, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", making it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the narrative. Meanwhile, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, as this appears a different type of work – fact-based, authentically narrative. But then it reveals itself to be laden with the recurring issues and styles as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus began as an artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating intimate women's literature from self-debasement into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the following three engaging and challenging novels did not possess the power and directness that the correspondence format imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a nonconformist creator who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It is logical that she now wants to explore different types of content, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a period in which she asserts that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning three generations – all unable to escape their pasts. There is the story of Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, moving from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. 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 substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a town mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.

From my perspective as a reader attracted to polished prose of the type Kraus often avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

As someone who reads drawn to crafted language of the kind that Kraus usually avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening segment. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for minutiae, like the bucket that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, assisted by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like sweet treats". The author narrates the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this fresh tone could continue through the novel. The author states here that she is annoyed by the pleasure readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels reasserts itself in the middle section. The protagonist is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between two different states, 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 fueled by the anger and fear that powers a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "property owner" on a reference site. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. At one point she states that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the referenced day experienced by the murdered individual with the killer and his friends. Kraus has great source material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, loitering having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman 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 oddly unfinished, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par