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The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters seeking clean slates, trying to break free from drugs or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into violence. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", making it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the narrative. And yet, the author herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, since this seems a new kind of book – documentarian, truly literary. However it turns out to be filled with the recurring issues and approaches as past novels.

From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work

Kraus was originally an visual artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming confessional female writing from self-debasement into defiance. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels missed the shock and immediacy that the letter form brought to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a maverick maker who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It makes sense that she presently aims to try out new kinds of material, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a time when she asserts that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature redundant.

Three Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning several time periods – none able to break free from their backgrounds. There is the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, relocating from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a community mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

As a reader fond of refined literature of the sort Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

Being a reader who appreciates precise prose of the kind that the author tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial part. It possesses a novel degree of detail that makes room for small details, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, aided by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was fated to feel let down when I wished this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the unpolished style she shares with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books reasserts itself in the central part. Catt Greene is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a society driven by the hostility and dread that powers an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "author" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her online critics would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the actual killing – and the eponymous day experienced by the victim with the perpetrator and his friends. The author possesses great source material, and details moment by moment what happened when Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, mooching around fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who comes alive partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par