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The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters seeking clean slates, struggling to escape addictions or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", rendering it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the story. And yet, she seems to be making her personal new beginning, since this presents as a new kind of book – observational, genuinely novelistic. However it reveals itself to be packed with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus was originally an artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting personal female narrative from humiliation into rebellion. She continued writing, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the impact and rawness that the correspondence format infused into the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a maverick maker who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It follows that she now wants to explore different types of content, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a time when she states that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing three generations – none able to break free from their histories. The book includes the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, transitioning from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the character of Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a community mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader drawn to polished prose of the type Kraus herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the narrative style of the opening part.

As someone who reads who appreciates honed writing of the kind that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was won over by the literary tone of the opening segment. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates minutiae, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, assisted by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this new voice could last out the book. Kraus says here that she resents the enjoyment readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books reasserts itself in the central part. The protagonist is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a environment propelled by the anger and fear that drives a political win. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "property owner" on a reference site. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day passed by the murdered individual with the killer and his associates. The author possesses great source material, and details moment by moment what happened when Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par