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The new book is populated with characters pursuing new beginnings, trying to break free from substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into violence. The author frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into intentionally weary through recurring use. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the text. Meanwhile, she is embarking on her own fresh start, since this presents as a novel form of writing – observational, authentically narrative. However it proves to be packed with the same dilemmas and styles as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book

Chris Kraus was originally an artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating intimate women's literature from abjection into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the letter form infused into the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a renegade artist who had turned into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It follows that she now wants to explore new kinds of material, looking outwards to external narratives, at a moment when she claims that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing obsolete.

Three Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning multiple eras – none able to break free from their backgrounds. The book includes the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, moving from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a locality largely deserted by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader drawn to refined literature of the kind the author herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.

As a reader who appreciates precise prose of the kind that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the first section. There is a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for small details, like the pail that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I wished this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the pleasure audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she shares with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels reasserts itself in the central part. The protagonist is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as her spouse transitions between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a world fueled by the anger and fear that drives an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. At one point she states that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her online critics would not understand, would not even see".

The Killing Story

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the titular day experienced by the victim with the perpetrator and his companions. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what happened when Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, wandering about fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par