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This latest work is populated with protagonists seeking fresh starts, struggling to escape drugs or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into violence. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", making it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the narrative. Meanwhile, Kraus herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, as this appears a different type of work – observational, authentically narrative. But then it proves to be filled with the recurring issues and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus was originally an artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming personal female narrative from self-debasement into assassination. She continued writing, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the power and directness that the epistolary style brought to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a renegade artist who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It follows that she currently desires to explore new kinds of material, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a time when she claims that current political era renders personal narrative redundant.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering multiple eras – all unable to escape their histories. There is the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a community long abandoned by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader fond of honed writing of the type the author herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the narrative style of the first section.

As someone who reads drawn to crafted language of the style that Kraus often disregards, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section. There is a novel degree of detail that makes room for small details, like the container that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, assisted by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like piece candy". She tells the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was fated to feel let down when I wished this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she dislikes the enjoyment audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels returns in the second segment. Catt is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help her husband manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as her spouse cycles through poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a environment fueled by the anger and fear that underpins Trump's victory. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she says that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the titular day experienced by the deceased with the perpetrator and his friends. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what happened when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, loitering getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par