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This latest work is populated with characters chasing after fresh starts, trying to break free from drugs or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", making it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the story. And yet, the author herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, since this appears a different type of work – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. But then it turns out to be packed with the recurring issues and aesthetics as earlier books.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

Kraus started out as an creative who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, elevating confessional female writing from humiliation into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels lacked the power and directness that the correspondence format infused into the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a renegade artist who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It follows that she now wants to explore different types of content, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a moment when she states that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature redundant.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning multiple eras – each trapped by their pasts. The book includes the story of characters Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, transitioning from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a locality mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader fond of refined literature of the type the author herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.

As a reader who appreciates crafted language of the style that Kraus herself often disregards, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening segment. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for small details, like the container that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this different style could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the enjoyment audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books comes back in the middle section. The protagonist is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a environment driven by the rage and anxiety that underpins an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on social media, her occupation changed from "writer" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she states that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the murder itself – and the titular day experienced by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what happened when a man named 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 in the company of her associates, loitering fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partly through the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par