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The new book is populated with protagonists seeking fresh starts, attempting to leave behind addictions or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into conflict. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into intentionally weary through recurring use. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the narrative. Meanwhile, the author herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, because this presents as a different type of work – fact-based, authentically narrative. But then it turns out to be filled with the recurring issues and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus started out as an creative who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming confessional female writing from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style infused into the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a nonconformist creator who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It is logical that she now wants to explore different types of content, looking outwards to external narratives, at a time when she asserts that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative redundant.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing several time periods – all unable to escape their backgrounds. We encounter the story of characters Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, transitioning from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a community mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

From my perspective as a reader fond of polished prose of the sort the author herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.

Being a reader who favors crafted language of the style that Kraus usually avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that allows space for minutiae, like the bucket that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, helped by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her idol Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books returns in the second segment. Catt Greene is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while moving between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as her spouse cycles through poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a environment driven by the hostility and dread that drives an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on social media, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she states that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".

The Homicide Account

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the titular day passed by the victim with the killer and his friends. Kraus utilizes great source material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, mooching around fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who gains dimension partly through Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par