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This latest work features individuals seeking clean slates, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into willfully cynical through recurring use. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the text. And yet, she is embarking on her personal new beginning, as this seems a different type of work – fact-based, authentically narrative. But then it reveals itself to be laden with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book

The writer began as an visual artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating personal female narrative from self-debasement into defiance. She kept producing books, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the shock and immediacy 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 evolved into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It makes sense that she presently aims to try out fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a period in which she asserts that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative redundant.

Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning several time periods – all unable to escape their histories. There is the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, moving from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a town long abandoned by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader drawn to polished prose of the type the author herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.

Being a reader drawn to crafted language of the kind that Kraus usually avoids, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for small details, like the pail that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she resents the satisfaction audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books returns in the central part. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a society fueled by the anger and fear that powers Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her occupation changed from "author" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. At one point she states that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Murder Narrative

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the eponymous day spent by the murdered individual with the killer and his associates. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what occurred as the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, wandering about fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par