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This latest work features characters pursuing new beginnings, trying to break free from addictions or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", rendering it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the narrative. At the same time, Kraus herself is embarking on her own fresh start, since this presents as a new kind of book – documentarian, authentically narrative. However it reveals itself to be packed with the same dilemmas and styles as past novels.

From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work

The writer was originally an visual artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming intimate women's literature from humiliation into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the letter form brought to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a maverick maker who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It follows that she currently desires to experiment with fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a moment when she claims that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature obsolete.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing several time periods – each trapped by their backgrounds. The book includes the story of Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the character of Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a town largely deserted by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader drawn to honed writing of the sort Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section.

Being a reader drawn to crafted language of the kind that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the initial part. There is a fresh level of observation that accommodates minutiae, like the pail that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the start of the story, helped by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". She tells the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this different style could last out the book. Kraus says here that she resents the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the unpolished style she echoes from her hero Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books returns in the middle section. The protagonist is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a environment propelled by the rage and anxiety that drives an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her occupation changed from "author" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she says that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her online critics would not understand, would not even see".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the murder itself – and the eponymous day passed by the victim with the killer and his associates. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what transpired when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par