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This latest work features individuals seeking fresh starts, trying to break free from addictions or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into aggression. Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", making it willfully cynical through recurring use. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the text. Meanwhile, she is embarking on her personal new beginning, as this appears a novel form of writing – observational, genuinely novelistic. Yet it proves to be packed with the recurring issues and aesthetics as earlier books.

From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book

Chris Kraus started out as an creative who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming confessional female writing from self-debasement into assassination. She continued writing, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the epistolary style brought to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a maverick maker who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It is logical that she now wants to explore different types of content, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a moment when she states that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative obsolete.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing several time periods – all unable to escape their backgrounds. We encounter the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, moving from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. There is the account of Kraus, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a locality largely deserted by liberal ideals only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader fond of refined literature of the kind Kraus herself often avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.

As someone who reads who appreciates crafted language of the kind that the author often disregards, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the first section. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that allows space for small details, like the container that the young Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, helped by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a great plaything", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's story with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this new voice could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the enjoyment audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the unpolished style she has in common with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books returns in the middle section. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid her husband control his drinking. She feels helpless as her spouse transitions between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a environment driven by the anger and fear that underpins a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her occupation changed from "author" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. In a moment she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the eponymous day experienced by the victim with the murderer and his friends. Kraus utilizes great source material, and details moment by moment what happened when Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par