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This latest work is populated with characters pursuing new beginnings, attempting to leave behind addictions or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", rendering it intentionally weary through recurring use. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the story. Meanwhile, she is embarking on her own fresh start, because this seems a novel form of writing – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. However it proves to be filled with the familiar conflicts and styles as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

The writer began as an creative who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, transforming intimate women's literature from self-debasement into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the impact and rawness that the correspondence format imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a maverick maker who had turned into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It is logical that she presently aims to explore fresh narrative sources, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a time when she asserts that current political era makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Three Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing three generations – each trapped by their backgrounds. There is the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, relocating from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a town long abandoned by progressive politics only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader drawn to polished prose of the kind Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section.

As a reader who appreciates precise prose of the style that Kraus often disregards, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the first section. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for small details, like the container that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped 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 fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works comes back in the middle section. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting her husband control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as her spouse moves between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a society driven by the hostility and dread that drives an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her listed profession modified from "author" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an America that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Killing Story

Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the titular day spent by the deceased with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus has great source material, and details moment by moment what happened when Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, loitering getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par