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This latest work centers on characters pursuing clean slates, attempting to leave behind addictions or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", rendering it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the story. Meanwhile, she appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, because this presents as a different type of work – documentarian, authentically narrative. But then it proves to be packed with the familiar conflicts and styles as past novels.

From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book

Kraus started out as an artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating confessional female writing from abjection into assassination. She continued writing, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels missed the power and directness that the correspondence format infused into the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a maverick maker who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It makes sense that she currently desires to explore fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a moment when she claims that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative obsolete.

Three Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing three generations – none able to break free from their backgrounds. There is the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a locality largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader fond of honed writing of the sort the author herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.

As someone who reads who appreciates crafted language of the variety that Kraus often disregards, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It possesses a novel degree of detail that allows space for minutiae, like the container that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this fresh tone could persist to the end. The author states here that she dislikes the enjoyment audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels comes back in the middle section. Catt Greene is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as her spouse moves between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a environment fueled by the hostility and dread that drives an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on social media, her occupation changed from "writer" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she states that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the actual killing – and the titular day passed by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his friends. The author possesses excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what happened when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partly through the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par