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This latest work is populated with individuals pursuing new beginnings, struggling to escape substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into conflict. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into willfully cynical through recurring use. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the text. At the same time, she is embarking on her personal new beginning, because this presents as a novel form of writing – documentarian, authentically narrative. Yet it proves to be filled with the recurring issues and approaches as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book

Kraus started out as an artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating intimate women's literature from abjection into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the power and directness that the epistolary style imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It is logical that she presently aims to experiment with new kinds of material, turning outward to other people's stories, at a moment when she states that current political era turns intimate literature obsolete.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning multiple eras – each trapped by their histories. The book includes the narrative about Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, relocating from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a locality long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

For this reader fond of polished prose of the kind Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section.

As a reader who favors honed writing of the variety that Kraus usually avoids, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the first section. There is a fresh level of observation that accommodates small details, like the bucket that the young Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this different style could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she resents the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she shares with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works comes back in the second segment. Catt is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting her husband manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as her spouse transitions between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a environment fueled by the rage and anxiety that underpins an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".

The Homicide Account

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the eponymous day passed by the deceased with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus utilizes great source material, and details moment by moment what happened when Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, mooching around getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par