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This latest work centers on individuals seeking fresh starts, attempting to leave behind drugs or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", making it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the text. And yet, she appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, since this presents as a novel form of writing – fact-based, authentically narrative. Yet it proves to be packed with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus started out as an visual artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming intimate women's literature from abjection into defiance. She continued writing, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels lacked the impact and rawness that the epistolary style imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a maverick maker who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It is logical that she presently aims to experiment with new kinds of material, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a time when she states that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative redundant.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing several time periods – all unable to escape their histories. There is the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, transitioning from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a town mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.

As a reader attracted to polished prose of the type the author herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section.

Being a reader who favors honed writing of the variety that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the first section. There is a fresh level of observation that allows space for trivial aspects, like the pail that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, assisted by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her hero Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works returns in the second segment. The protagonist is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as her spouse moves between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a world fueled by the anger and fear that powers Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on social media, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "landlord" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she states that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the murder itself – and the titular day experienced by the deceased with the murderer and his associates. Kraus utilizes great source material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, loitering getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who comes alive partially because of Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par