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This latest work centers on characters chasing after clean slates, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into willfully cynical through its repetitions. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the text. And yet, she appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, as this presents as a new kind of book – fact-based, truly literary. However it turns out to be packed with the recurring issues and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus was originally an artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, transforming intimate women's literature from abjection into rebellion. She continued writing, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the power and directness that the correspondence format infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It makes sense that she presently aims to experiment with different types of content, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a period in which she states that current political era renders personal narrative redundant.

Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering several time periods – each trapped by their backgrounds. The book includes the tale of Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, moving from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a community long abandoned by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader fond of polished prose of the type Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the first section.

Being a reader who favors honed writing of the kind that the author tends to eschew, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that makes room for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, helped by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this different style could persist to the end. The author states here that she dislikes the pleasure readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works comes back in the central part. The protagonist is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while moving between two different states, failing to help her husband manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a world fueled by the anger and fear that underpins a political win. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. At one point she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the referenced day passed by the victim with the killer and his associates. The author possesses excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partly through Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par