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The new book centers on individuals pursuing clean slates, struggling to escape drugs or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", rendering it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the story. Meanwhile, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, because this appears a new kind of book – fact-based, authentically narrative. Yet it turns out to be laden with the same dilemmas and styles as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

Kraus started out as an visual artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, transforming intimate women's literature from abjection into assassination. She continued writing, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the letter form infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It follows that she now wants to experiment with different types of content, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a period in which she claims that current political era turns intimate literature unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing several time periods – each trapped by their histories. The book includes the story of Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, transitioning from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a town long abandoned by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.

As a reader fond of polished prose of the kind Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening part.

Being a reader who appreciates crafted language of the style that Kraus often disregards, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that accommodates minutiae, like the pail that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like sweet treats". She tells Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the pleasure readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works comes back in the second segment. Catt Greene is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid her husband control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse moves between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a environment fueled by the rage and anxiety that underpins Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she says that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".

The Homicide Account

Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the titular day spent by the deceased with the killer and his associates. The author possesses excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, loitering getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who comes alive partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par