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This latest work features protagonists seeking new beginnings, struggling to escape drugs or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the story. Meanwhile, she appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, because this presents as a novel form of writing – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. Yet it reveals itself to be laden with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as earlier books.

From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus was originally an creative who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming intimate women's literature from humiliation into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the power and directness that the letter form brought to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a renegade artist who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It is logical that she now wants to try out new kinds of material, turning outward to external narratives, at a period in which she asserts that current political era makes confessional writing redundant.

Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning several time periods – each trapped by their pasts. The book includes the story of Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, relocating from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a community long abandoned by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader attracted to refined literature of the kind Kraus typically rejects, I was seduced by the narrative style of the initial segment.

Being a reader who favors honed writing of the kind that Kraus usually avoids, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that accommodates minutiae, like the pail that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, aided by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this different style could last out the book. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between two different states, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as her spouse transitions between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a society propelled by the rage and anxiety that powers a political win. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the titular day spent by the deceased with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what happened when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par