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This latest work features protagonists seeking clean slates, trying to break free from drugs or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into conflict. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", rendering it willfully cynical through recurring use. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the text. And yet, Kraus herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, as this appears a different type of work – documentarian, truly literary. But then it reveals itself to be laden with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

The writer started out as an creative who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, converting intimate women's literature from humiliation into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels missed the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format infused into the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a renegade artist who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It is logical that she currently desires to experiment with different types of content, turning outward to external narratives, at a period in which she asserts that current political era renders personal narrative redundant.

Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing three generations – none able to break free from their backgrounds. We encounter the tale of Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, transitioning from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a locality long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.

As a reader fond of refined literature of the kind Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the narrative style of the opening part.

As a reader who appreciates honed writing of the style that Kraus often disregards, I was won over by the literary tone of the first section. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates trivial aspects, like the container that the young Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, aided by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this different style could last out the book. The author states here that she dislikes the enjoyment audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books reasserts itself in the central part. The protagonist is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a society driven by the hostility and dread that underpins Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she states that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day experienced by the victim with the murderer and his friends. The author possesses excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, mooching around getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who comes alive partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par