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The new book is populated with characters seeking clean slates, attempting to leave behind drugs or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", making it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the narrative. At the same time, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, as this seems a new kind of book – observational, genuinely novelistic. But then it turns out to be laden with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus began as an artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting confessional female writing from humiliation into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the following three engaging and challenging novels missed the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a maverick maker who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It follows that she currently desires to explore different types of content, looking outwards to external narratives, at a time when she claims that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature unnecessary.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning multiple eras – none able to break free from their backgrounds. The book includes the tale of Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, transitioning from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. There is the account of Kraus, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a locality long abandoned by liberal ideals only a short distance from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader attracted to honed writing of the kind Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the narrative style of the opening part.

As a reader who appreciates honed writing of the style that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It possesses a fresh level of observation that allows space for trivial aspects, like the container that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a great plaything", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this different style could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works returns in the central part. Catt is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse cycles through low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a environment propelled by the hostility and dread that powers Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "author" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an America that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even see".

The Killing Story

Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the titular day passed by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his companions. The author possesses excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partly through Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par