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The new book features individuals seeking new beginnings, trying to break free from drugs or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into willfully cynical through its repetitions. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the narrative. Meanwhile, the author herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, because this seems a different type of work – documentarian, authentically narrative. Yet it turns out to be packed with the familiar conflicts and styles as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus began as an creative who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating personal female narrative from abjection into assassination. She continued writing, but the following three engaging and challenging novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style brought to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It follows that she now wants to experiment with new kinds of material, turning outward to external narratives, at a moment when she asserts that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature obsolete.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering three generations – none able to break free from their backgrounds. There is the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, relocating from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition 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 town mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader attracted to polished prose of the type Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the narrative style of the first section.

Being a reader who appreciates crafted language of the kind that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. There is a novel degree of detail that makes room for trivial aspects, like the pail that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, helped by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this different style could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the enjoyment audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between two different states, failing to help her husband manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a world fueled by the anger and fear that drives an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she states that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the murder itself – and the eponymous day spent by the deceased with the killer and his associates. Kraus utilizes great source material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was intrigued 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 most interesting character is Brittney herself, who comes alive partly through Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par