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The new book centers on protagonists chasing after fresh starts, struggling to escape substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", making it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the narrative. And yet, the author herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, since this seems a new kind of book – observational, authentically narrative. Yet it reveals itself to be packed with the same dilemmas and styles as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus started out as an visual artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, converting intimate women's literature from abjection into defiance. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels missed the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a renegade artist who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It follows that she now wants to experiment with fresh narrative sources, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a time when she claims that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing redundant.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering multiple eras – each trapped by their backgrounds. We encounter the tale of Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, relocating from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a locality long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.

From my perspective as a reader fond of refined literature of the type Kraus typically rejects, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the initial segment.

As a reader who favors precise prose of the variety that the author tends to eschew, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that allows space for small details, like the bucket that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, assisted by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was fated to feel let down when I wished this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus says here that she resents the pleasure audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while moving between two different states, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a world propelled by the rage and anxiety that underpins an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's investigating the murder 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 overlook entirely".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the actual killing – and the titular day experienced by the deceased with the murderer and his associates. The author possesses excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, mooching around fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by her romantic interest a man named 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 was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to go further into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par