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This latest work is populated with characters pursuing clean slates, struggling to escape substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", making it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the text. And yet, the author herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, because this seems a novel form of writing – fact-based, truly literary. However it proves to be filled with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus was originally an creative who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating personal female narrative from humiliation into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels missed the power and directness that the epistolary style infused into the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a maverick maker who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It follows that she now wants to try out different types of content, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a period in which she claims that current political era turns intimate literature unnecessary.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning three generations – each trapped by their histories. We encounter the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the guise of Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a community largely deserted by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader attracted to polished prose of the type the author herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section.

As someone who reads who favors crafted language of the variety that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was won over by the literary tone of the opening segment. It possesses a novel degree of detail that accommodates minutiae, like the container that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a great plaything", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this new voice could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the unpolished style she echoes from her idol author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels comes back in the central part. Catt is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help her husband manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as her spouse transitions between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a world propelled by the anger and fear that powers an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "author" to "landlord" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. In a moment she says that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an America that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the actual killing – and the referenced day experienced by the victim with the murderer and his associates. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what happened when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, wandering about fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to go further into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par