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The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with protagonists pursuing clean slates, trying to break free from drugs or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. The author often employs the phrase "clean slate", rendering it willfully cynical through recurring use. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the text. Meanwhile, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, as this appears a different type of work – fact-based, truly literary. Yet it proves to be filled with the familiar conflicts and styles as earlier books.

From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book

Chris Kraus started out as an artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating personal female narrative from humiliation into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels missed the power and directness that the letter form imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a maverick maker who had become a major property owner, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It follows that she now wants to experiment with fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a period in which she states that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering three generations – none able to break free from their histories. There is the story of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, moving from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a community largely deserted by progressive politics only a short distance from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader fond of polished prose of the type Kraus herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section.

As someone who reads drawn to crafted language of the variety that Kraus often disregards, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial part. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that makes room for minutiae, like the bucket that the young Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, aided by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like sweet treats". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this new voice could last out the book. The author states here that she dislikes the enjoyment audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels reasserts itself in the middle section. The protagonist 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 manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as her spouse moves between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a world fueled by the rage and anxiety that drives a political win. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "property owner" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the eponymous day spent by the victim with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what occurred as a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who comes alive partially because of Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par