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This latest work centers on individuals seeking new beginnings, trying to break free from drugs or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", rendering it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the narrative. And yet, Kraus herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, because this presents as a novel form of writing – fact-based, truly literary. However it turns out to be filled with the recurring issues and aesthetics as earlier books.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus was originally an artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating confessional female writing from humiliation into rebellion. She continued writing, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels missed the impact and rawness that the correspondence format imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a renegade artist who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It follows that she currently desires to explore new kinds of material, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a period in which she claims that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature redundant.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning three generations – each trapped by their histories. The book includes the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, relocating from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. There is the account of Kraus, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a locality mostly forsaken by progressive politics only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.

From my perspective as a reader fond of polished prose of the type Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening part.

Being a reader who appreciates precise prose of the kind that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that allows space for small details, like the bucket that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like sweet treats". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels comes back in the middle section. Catt Greene is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as her spouse transitions between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a society fueled by the hostility and dread that drives Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she says that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the titular day experienced by the murdered individual with the murderer and his companions. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what occurred as the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, wandering about fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who comes alive partly through the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par