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This latest work features individuals pursuing clean slates, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into conflict. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", rendering it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the narrative. And yet, Kraus herself seems to be making her own fresh start, as this appears a novel form of writing – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. Yet it proves to be laden with the familiar conflicts and approaches as her previous works.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus was originally an creative who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, transforming confessional female writing from humiliation into assassination. She continued writing, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the correspondence format brought to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a nonconformist creator who had become a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It makes sense that she currently desires to try out fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a moment when she asserts that current political era makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing three generations – all unable to escape their backgrounds. We encounter the tale of Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. There is the narrative of the author, in the character of Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a locality largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.

As a reader fond of honed writing of the type Kraus herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the opening part.

As a reader drawn to crafted language of the style that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the initial part. There is a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for trivial aspects, like the pail that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the satisfaction audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the unpolished style she shares with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels returns in the second segment. Catt is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while moving between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a environment propelled by the hostility and dread that drives a political win. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on social media, her occupation changed from "author" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she states that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her online critics would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the titular day experienced by the deceased with the killer and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, wandering about getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.

Fascination and Incompletion

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to go further into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who gains dimension partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par