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This latest work features characters seeking new beginnings, struggling to escape addictions or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into willfully cynical through its repetitions. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the story. And yet, the author herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, since this seems a different type of work – documentarian, truly literary. But then it turns out to be packed with the same dilemmas and styles as her previous works.

From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book

Chris Kraus was originally an visual artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting personal female narrative from abjection into defiance. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels lacked the impact and rawness 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 turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It makes sense that she now wants to try out fresh narrative sources, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a moment when she asserts that current political era turns intimate literature redundant.

Three Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning multiple eras – all unable to escape their backgrounds. We encounter the narrative about Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband her husband Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a community mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader drawn to honed writing of the kind Kraus herself often avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening part.

As a reader drawn to crafted language of the kind that the author often disregards, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for trivial aspects, like the container that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a great plaything", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this different style could continue through the novel. The author states here that she is annoyed by the pleasure readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels reasserts itself in the central part. The protagonist is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as her spouse transitions between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a environment driven by the hostility and dread that drives a political win. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her occupation changed from "writer" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Murder Narrative

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the referenced day passed by the murdered individual with the murderer and his companions. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what transpired when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, loitering getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par