A review by frlzimt
The Cracked Looking-Glass by Katherine Anne Porter

3.0

A powerfully atmospheric marital portrait of an aging husband and his much younger wife. The domestic parts of it were wonderful, the wife's regrets she's working so hard not to think through, her realisation of what her life must look like reflected in the eyes of her neighbours, but also the husband's thoughts on his marriage and his utterly unquestioning acceptance of their respective roles - these were fascinating to read from a modern perspective. There is a substantial dose of racism and xenophobia in this book; the protagonist, a white Irish woman who immigrated into the US as a young woman, views everyone else as 'foreigners' without once contemplating that she, too, is a 'foreigner'. The book is also a facinating portrayal of the small-scale social groupings of the early 20th century, where people from the next town or another county (not countRy) were deemed of bad character and never fit to marry a person from one's own, undeniably much superior, little hamlet -- in that sense, while it was somewhat disturbing to read, it made me very glad that we have at least left this very small scale of discriminating against each other behind us - maybe there's hope after all.