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This latest work features individuals pursuing fresh starts, attempting to leave behind drugs or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into violence. The author frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", making it willfully cynical through recurring use. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the narrative. At the same time, the author herself seems to be making her own fresh start, because this presents as a novel form of writing – fact-based, authentically narrative. However it turns out to be laden with the familiar conflicts and styles as earlier books.

From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus was originally an artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, converting confessional female writing from humiliation into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the following three engaging and challenging novels missed the power and directness that the correspondence format infused into the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a maverick maker who had turned into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It makes sense that she currently desires to explore different types of content, looking outwards to external narratives, at a period in which she claims that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing obsolete.

Three Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning several time periods – all unable to escape their pasts. There is the tale of Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. There is the narrative of the author, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a locality mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader fond of polished prose of the kind the author herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the narrative style of the opening part.

Being a reader who favors crafted language of the style that the author often disregards, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that allows space for minutiae, like the pail that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, aided by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was fated to feel let down when I wished this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she resents the enjoyment readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books returns in the middle section. Catt is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while moving between two different states, failing to help her husband curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse moves between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a society fueled by the anger and fear that drives a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her listed profession modified from "author" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the murder itself – and the referenced day experienced by the victim with the perpetrator and his companions. The author possesses excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what happened when the victim Brandon came to see 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, mooching around fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to go further into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who comes alive partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par