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The Four Spent the Day Together features characters chasing after clean slates, trying to break free from substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", rendering it intentionally weary through recurring use. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the story. And yet, she appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, because this appears a new kind of book – observational, truly literary. But then it proves to be packed with the recurring issues and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

The writer began as an creative who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating confessional female writing from self-debasement into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the power and directness that the epistolary style brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a renegade artist who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It follows that she currently desires to try out fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a moment when she asserts that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature redundant.

Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing three generations – all unable to escape their histories. The book includes the narrative about Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, relocating from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a locality long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader drawn to honed writing of the sort Kraus typically rejects, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the first section.

As someone who reads who appreciates crafted language of the style that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for small details, like the bucket that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like hard candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the satisfaction readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her idol Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books returns in the middle section. The protagonist is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between two different states, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a environment propelled by the rage and anxiety that drives Trump's victory. 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 be overly concerned about this. At one point she says that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the murder itself – and the referenced day passed by the deceased with the murderer and his companions. Kraus has great source material, and details moment by moment what happened when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, loitering fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney, who comes alive partly through the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par