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The new book features characters seeking new beginnings, trying to break free from addictions or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. The author often employs the phrase "clean slate", rendering it intentionally weary through recurring use. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the story. And yet, Kraus herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, since this seems a novel form of writing – observational, genuinely novelistic. But then it reveals itself to be packed with the familiar conflicts and approaches as her previous works.

From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus started out as an artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting personal female narrative from humiliation into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels lacked the power and directness that the epistolary style 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 large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It is logical that she now wants to explore different types of content, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a period in which she claims that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing redundant.

Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing three generations – none able to break free from their pasts. There is the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, moving from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. There is the narrative of the author, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a town long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader attracted to honed writing of the kind Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the initial segment.

As a reader who favors honed writing of the style that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates trivial aspects, like the bucket that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a nice toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this new voice could continue through the novel. The author states here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works returns in the central part. Catt is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a world driven by the hostility and dread that drives Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "property owner" on a reference site. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. At one point she says that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even see".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the referenced day passed by the victim with the murderer and his associates. The author possesses excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, wandering about getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par