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The new book centers on individuals seeking new beginnings, struggling to escape substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into willfully cynical through recurring use. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the narrative. At the same time, she seems to be making her own fresh start, since this appears a different type of work – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. But then it proves to be laden with the recurring issues and approaches as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book

Chris Kraus began as an artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, transforming personal female narrative from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the impact and rawness that the correspondence format imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It follows that she presently aims to experiment with fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a period in which she asserts that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature obsolete.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning three generations – all unable to escape their pasts. We encounter the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, relocating from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the guise of Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a town mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader fond of polished prose of the sort Kraus herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the narrative style of the opening part.

As someone who reads who favors crafted language of the variety that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. There is a fresh level of observation that makes room for trivial aspects, like the container that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this new voice could last out the book. The author states here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works comes back in the middle section. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a society driven by the rage and anxiety that powers Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her occupation changed from "writer" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she states that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the titular day passed by the victim with the killer and his associates. The author possesses excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what transpired when Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partly through Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par