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This latest work centers on protagonists chasing after clean slates, struggling to escape addictions or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into violence. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", making it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the story. At the same time, the author herself is embarking on her own fresh start, since this presents as a novel form of writing – fact-based, truly literary. However it proves to be packed with the familiar conflicts and approaches as her previous works.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

The writer started out as an visual artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, transforming intimate women's literature from humiliation into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style infused into the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a maverick maker who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It is logical that she currently desires to try out different types of content, looking outwards to external narratives, at a time when she asserts that current political era makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering several time periods – all unable to escape their pasts. There is the tale of Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, moving from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a community long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.

As a reader attracted to honed writing of the sort the author herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

As a reader who favors precise prose of the style that Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the first section. It possesses a novel degree of detail that makes room for small details, like the bucket that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, helped by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like piece candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I wished this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her hero Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books returns in the central part. Catt Greene is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a society fueled by the hostility and dread 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 the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she says that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".

The Homicide Account

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the titular day spent by the victim with the killer and his friends. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what transpired when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Fascination and Incompletion

The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par