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The new book is populated with individuals chasing after clean slates, attempting to leave behind addictions or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", making it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the story. At the same time, she seems to be making her own fresh start, since this seems a novel form of writing – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. However it turns out to be packed with the recurring issues and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book

The writer started out as an visual artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating personal female narrative from humiliation into defiance. She continued writing, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style brought to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a renegade artist who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It is logical that she now wants to experiment with different types of content, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a time when she states that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative obsolete.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering three generations – none able to break free from their pasts. There is the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, moving from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a town mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a short distance from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

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

Being a reader who favors crafted language of the kind that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that makes room for minutiae, like the pail that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, helped by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this different style could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she resents the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books comes back in the central part. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a society propelled by the hostility and dread that underpins a political win. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she states that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the titular day passed by the deceased with the murderer and his friends. The author possesses great source material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.

Fascination and Incompletion

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par