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This latest work is populated with individuals seeking new beginnings, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", making it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the narrative. At the same time, the author herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, since this appears a novel form of writing – observational, genuinely novelistic. But then it turns out to be laden with the familiar conflicts and approaches as her previous works.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

Kraus began as an visual artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming personal female narrative from self-debasement into defiance. She kept producing books, but the following three engaging and challenging novels lacked the power and directness that the epistolary style brought to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had become a major property owner, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It makes sense that she now wants to explore fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a time when she states that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering multiple eras – each trapped by their pasts. There is the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, moving from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a town long abandoned by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

From my perspective as a reader attracted to refined literature of the type the author herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

Being a reader drawn to crafted language of the variety that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was won over by the literary tone of the opening segment. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that accommodates minutiae, like the container that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works returns in the second segment. The protagonist is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as her spouse moves between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a world fueled by the hostility and dread that powers Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on social media, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. At one point she says that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even see".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the titular day passed by the victim with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus has excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, wandering about getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to go further into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par