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The new book centers on characters chasing after clean slates, trying to break free from addictions or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into aggression. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", making it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the narrative. Meanwhile, Kraus herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, since this appears a different type of work – documentarian, truly literary. But then it proves to be laden with the familiar conflicts and approaches as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book

Chris Kraus started out as an artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming personal female narrative from abjection into defiance. She continued writing, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels missed the impact and rawness that the correspondence format brought to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It follows that she now wants to explore different types of content, turning outward to other people's stories, at a moment when she claims that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering multiple eras – all unable to escape their histories. The book includes the story of Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, moving from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. There is the account of Kraus, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a community long abandoned by progressive politics only a short distance from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader drawn to honed writing of the sort Kraus tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the first section.

Being a reader drawn to honed writing of the kind that Kraus herself often disregards, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It possesses a fresh level of observation that allows space for trivial aspects, like the pail that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the start of the story, helped by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". She tells Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this different style could continue through the novel. The author states here that she resents the enjoyment readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works comes back in the middle section. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between two different states, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a society fueled by the rage and anxiety that powers a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she says that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the murder itself – and the referenced day spent by the victim with the murderer and his associates. Kraus utilizes great source material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who comes alive partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a struggling, neglected community. 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 extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par