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The new book features individuals seeking clean slates, struggling to escape addictions or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into violence. The author often employs the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into willfully cynical through its repetitions. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the narrative. Meanwhile, the author herself seems to be making her own fresh start, since this seems a novel form of writing – observational, authentically narrative. But then it turns out to be filled with the same dilemmas and approaches as earlier books.

From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus began as an creative who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming confessional female writing from abjection into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels missed the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a renegade artist who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It is logical that she now wants to explore fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a moment when she states that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature obsolete.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering several time periods – each trapped by their backgrounds. There is the story of Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, moving from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the guise of Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband her husband Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a locality largely deserted by liberal ideals only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader fond of polished prose of the kind the author herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section.

Being a reader who appreciates precise prose of the kind that the author usually avoids, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the first section. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that accommodates trivial aspects, like the container that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, helped by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like sweet treats". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this different style could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she dislikes the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her hero Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help her husband curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a world fueled by the anger and fear that drives a political win. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she says that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".

The Killing Story

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the eponymous day passed by the deceased with the murderer and his companions. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour 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 seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, wandering about getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partly through Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par