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This latest work is populated with individuals pursuing fresh starts, trying to break free from drugs or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into violence. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", rendering it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the story. And yet, the author herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, because this presents as a novel form of writing – documentarian, truly literary. But then it turns out to be laden with the recurring issues and styles as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic

Kraus started out as an visual artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating personal female narrative from abjection into assassination. She continued writing, but the following three engaging and challenging novels lacked the impact and rawness that the letter form brought to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a renegade artist who had turned into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It follows that she now wants to experiment with fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a time when she asserts that current political era renders personal narrative redundant.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing three generations – all unable to escape their pasts. There is the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, moving from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. There is the account of Kraus, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a locality mostly forsaken by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader drawn to refined literature of the kind Kraus herself often avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

As a reader drawn to crafted language of the variety that the author usually avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section. There is a novel degree of detail that makes room for small details, like the pail that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's narrative 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 wished this different style could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she resents the pleasure audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the unpolished style she echoes from her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works returns in the middle section. Catt Greene is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as her spouse cycles through low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a environment propelled by the hostility and dread that drives an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her occupation changed from "writer" to "landlord" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she states that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Homicide Account

Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day spent by the murdered individual with the murderer and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, wandering about getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par