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This latest work features protagonists seeking new beginnings, struggling to escape substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", making it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the text. Meanwhile, Kraus herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, because this appears a new kind of book – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. Yet it proves to be laden with the recurring issues and approaches as her previous works.

From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book

Chris Kraus started out as an creative who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, elevating intimate women's literature from humiliation into defiance. She kept producing books, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the power and directness that the epistolary style imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It is logical that she presently aims to experiment with fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a period in which she claims that current political era turns intimate literature obsolete.

Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing multiple eras – all unable to escape their pasts. The book includes the story of Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. There is the account of Kraus, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a locality long abandoned by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader fond of polished prose of the sort the author herself often avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section.

As someone who reads who appreciates crafted language of the kind that Kraus usually avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. There is a fresh level of observation that allows space for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a great plaything", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this new voice could last out the book. Kraus says here that she resents the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her idol Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works reasserts itself in the central part. Catt Greene is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between two different states, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a environment fueled by the hostility and dread that underpins an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. At one point she states that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".

The Homicide Account

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the eponymous day experienced by the murdered individual with the killer and his associates. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what happened when Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, loitering fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who comes alive partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par