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The new book features protagonists chasing after fresh starts, struggling to escape addictions or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into violence. Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into deliberately jaded through recurring use. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the text. And yet, she is embarking on her own fresh start, since this seems a new kind of book – documentarian, truly literary. However it turns out to be packed with the same dilemmas and styles as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus started out as an visual artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming confessional female writing from self-debasement into defiance. She continued writing, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels lacked the power and directness that the letter form brought to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It follows that she presently aims to explore fresh narrative sources, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a time when she asserts that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature redundant.

Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing multiple eras – all unable to escape their backgrounds. We encounter the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, relocating from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a community long abandoned by liberal ideals only a short distance from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.

As a reader attracted to refined literature of the sort the author herself often avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section.

As someone who reads drawn to honed writing of the style that the author usually avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening segment. There is a novel degree of detail that makes room for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, aided by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like hard candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "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 continue through the novel. The author states here that she resents the satisfaction audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books comes back in the middle section. The protagonist is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting her husband manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a environment fueled by the hostility and dread that underpins a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her occupation changed from "writer" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she says that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the referenced day experienced by the murdered individual with the killer and his companions. The author possesses excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, loitering getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par