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The new book is populated with characters chasing after fresh starts, trying to break free from substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into willfully cynical through its repetitions. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the story. Meanwhile, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, since this seems a different type of work – observational, authentically narrative. But then it reveals itself to be packed with the recurring issues and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

The writer was originally an artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, elevating personal female narrative from self-debasement into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the epistolary style imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a renegade artist who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It is logical that she now wants to try out different types of content, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a time when she states that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative obsolete.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing multiple eras – none able to break free from their histories. We encounter the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, relocating from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a locality mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader attracted to honed writing of the sort Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the first section.

As a reader who favors precise prose of the style that Kraus tends to eschew, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the first section. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for small details, like the container that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she resents the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels reasserts itself in the middle section. The protagonist is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between two different states, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a society driven by the rage and anxiety that drives a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. At one point she says that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an America that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the titular day spent by the murdered individual with the murderer and his associates. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what happened when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to go further into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par