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The new book features protagonists seeking fresh starts, trying to break free from substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", rendering it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the story. Meanwhile, the author herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, because this seems a different type of work – fact-based, authentically narrative. But then it reveals itself to be filled with the familiar conflicts and approaches as past novels.

From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work

Kraus started out as an creative who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming personal female narrative from humiliation into assassination. She kept producing books, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format brought to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It is logical that she now wants to try out different types of content, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a period in which she claims that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative obsolete.

Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering three generations – none able to break free from their pasts. We encounter the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the persona of Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a town mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.

From my perspective as a reader fond of honed writing of the sort Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the narrative style of the opening part.

Being a reader drawn to honed writing of the kind that Kraus usually avoids, I was won over by the literary tone of the initial part. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for small details, like the pail that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, aided by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this fresh tone could continue through the novel. The author states here that she dislikes the enjoyment readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books returns in the central part. Catt Greene is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid her husband manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse cycles through poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a environment fueled by the hostility and dread that underpins an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her professional designation altered from "author" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the murder itself – and the eponymous day experienced by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his associates. The author possesses great source material, and details moment by moment what happened when Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, loitering getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par