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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on protagonists pursuing clean slates, trying to break free from addictions or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", rendering it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the story. And yet, Kraus herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, as this presents as a novel form of writing – observational, genuinely novelistic. However it turns out to be filled with the recurring issues and approaches as her previous works.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

The writer was originally an artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating personal female narrative from abjection into defiance. She continued writing, but the following three engaging and challenging novels lacked the impact and rawness that the correspondence format brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a renegade artist who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It follows that she currently desires to explore fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a period in which she states that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing obsolete.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing three generations – none able to break free from their backgrounds. We encounter the tale of Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, relocating from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. There is the account of Kraus, in the persona of Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a town largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

As a reader drawn to honed writing of the sort the author herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the initial segment.

Being a reader who appreciates honed writing of the kind that the author usually avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section. It possesses a fresh level of observation that allows space for trivial aspects, like the container that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, helped by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a great plaything", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this fresh tone could continue through the novel. The author states here that she is annoyed by the pleasure readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works comes back in the second segment. Catt Greene is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a world driven by the rage and anxiety that powers Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on social media, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. At one point she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day experienced by the victim with the killer and his friends. Kraus has excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what happened when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who comes alive in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par