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This latest work is populated with characters pursuing clean slates, attempting to leave behind drugs or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into violence. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", rendering it intentionally weary through recurring use. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the story. At the same time, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, because this seems a new kind of book – observational, truly literary. However it reveals itself to be filled with the recurring issues and styles as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book

Chris Kraus was originally an creative who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming personal female narrative from self-debasement into rebellion. She continued writing, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels lacked the impact and rawness that the epistolary style infused into the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a maverick maker who had become a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It follows that she presently aims to try out new kinds of material, turning outward to external narratives, at a time when she asserts that current political era renders personal narrative redundant.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering three generations – none able to break free from their pasts. We encounter the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, relocating from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a community largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader drawn to polished prose of the kind Kraus often avoids, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the opening part.

As a reader who appreciates precise prose of the variety that Kraus often disregards, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It possesses a fresh level of observation that accommodates small details, like the container that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, assisted by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like sweet treats". She tells Emma's story with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the unpolished style she echoes from her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books comes back in the second segment. The protagonist is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between two different states, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as her spouse transitions between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a environment fueled by the rage and anxiety that powers Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on social media, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she states that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the actual killing – and the eponymous day spent by the victim with the murderer and his friends. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what happened when Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, wandering about getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who comes alive partially because of Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par