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This latest work centers on protagonists chasing after clean slates, attempting to leave behind addictions or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into conflict. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", making it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the story. And yet, she seems to be making her own fresh start, because this appears a novel form of writing – fact-based, truly literary. Yet it reveals itself to be laden with the recurring issues and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book

The writer was originally an artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming intimate women's literature from abjection into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels missed the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It is logical that she presently aims to try out new kinds of material, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a moment when she asserts that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering multiple eras – all unable to escape their histories. We encounter the story of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, transitioning from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a community mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.

As a reader attracted to refined literature of the type Kraus typically rejects, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the initial segment.

Being a reader who appreciates crafted language of the style that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that allows space for minutiae, like the container that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this new voice could last out the book. The author states here that she resents the enjoyment audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her hero Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works comes back in the second segment. Catt Greene is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid her husband control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a world driven by the rage and anxiety that powers Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. In a moment she says that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even see".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the actual killing – and the titular day spent by the victim with the murderer and his friends. Kraus utilizes great source material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex 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 killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who comes alive in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par