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The new book features protagonists seeking new beginnings, struggling to escape addictions or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", making it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the narrative. Meanwhile, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, as this seems a different type of work – observational, authentically narrative. Yet it proves to be filled with the familiar conflicts and approaches as earlier books.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus was originally an artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, converting confessional female writing from self-debasement into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the letter form brought to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It follows that she presently aims to explore new kinds of material, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a period in which she asserts that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative redundant.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering several time periods – all unable to escape their pasts. We encounter the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the persona of Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a locality long abandoned by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.

For this reader fond of polished prose of the type Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial segment.

Being a reader who appreciates precise prose of the variety that the author usually avoids, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that accommodates small details, like the container that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, assisted by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like hard candy". She tells Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she dislikes the pleasure readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels returns in the central part. Catt Greene is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as her spouse cycles through poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a environment propelled by the anger and fear that drives an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion 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 nation that her online critics would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Killing Story

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the referenced day experienced by the victim with the killer and his friends. Kraus has great source material, and details moment by moment what happened when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, mooching around getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partly through the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par