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The new book centers on characters seeking clean slates, trying to break free from substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into intentionally weary through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the narrative. At the same time, Kraus herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, as this appears a different type of work – documentarian, authentically narrative. However it reveals itself to be laden with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

The writer started out as an creative who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting intimate women's literature from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the power and directness that the letter form imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a renegade artist who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It makes sense that she currently desires to try out new kinds of material, turning outward to other people's stories, at a time when she claims that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing redundant.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing multiple eras – all unable to escape their histories. We encounter the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, relocating from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a town mostly forsaken by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader drawn to refined literature of the sort Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the narrative style of the initial segment.

Being a reader who favors precise prose of the kind that Kraus herself often disregards, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening segment. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for minutiae, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the start of the story, aided by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this new voice could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she resents the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the unpolished style she echoes from her hero Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books returns in the central part. Catt Greene is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a world fueled by the anger and fear that drives Trump's victory. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. At one point she states that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her online critics would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the referenced day spent by the victim with the killer and his friends. The author possesses great source material, and details moment by moment what transpired when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, loitering getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partly through Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par