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This latest work centers on characters pursuing fresh starts, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into aggression. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", rendering it willfully cynical through recurring use. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the narrative. And yet, Kraus herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, since this appears a different type of work – documentarian, truly literary. Yet it reveals itself to be packed with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus started out as an artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, elevating confessional female writing from abjection into defiance. She continued writing, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels missed the power and directness that the letter form imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a maverick maker who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It is logical that she now wants to try out new kinds of material, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a time when she states that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative redundant.

Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning three generations – each trapped by their pasts. We encounter the narrative about Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, transitioning from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a community largely deserted by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader drawn to polished prose of the type Kraus herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the initial segment.

Being a reader drawn to precise prose of the kind that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the initial part. There is a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for small details, like the container that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". She tells the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the unpolished style she shares with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels returns in the second segment. Catt is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while moving between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as her spouse cycles through low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a environment driven by the anger and fear that powers Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her listed profession modified from "author" to "landlord" on a reference site. She still gives the impression 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 may grasp something about an the United States that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even see".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the actual killing – and the titular day spent by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what occurred as a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par