Mirror Mirror

Rating:
Summary: "Mirror Mirror" by Carol Kafka
Review: I have never read a "book-within-a-book" novel of this quality. Ms. Kafka's ability to switch writing styles is astounding; as the reader, it was difficult to believe that the same person wrote both stories. The use of imagery in the inner book was alternately breathtaking and glorious, and the central character's [Carter's] emotions were so palpable I felt them myself. The outer book's strength was it's insight into the central character's [Christina's] neurosis, which grew out of the fact that her family buried her feelings when they buried her father. Going along with Christina as she writes her father's story and creates her own epiphany is a wonderful ride. Even if you haven't had a difficult upbringing, like Carter, or had to deal with the loss of a parent, like Christina, this book will move you profoundly.

Rating:
Summary: Needs a wider stage
Review: Ranging widely across much of 20th century America, this extraordinary first novel tells the spellbinding story of the determined and haunted Christina Fitzsimmons and her quest to find and understand the deceased father she knew only in her heart but whose pains and joys paralleled her own.

Filled with details of life on the rails during the Great Depression and the pre-War army to the present; from the brown earth of Virginian farmlands to the row houses of the Bronx; this novel is packed with memorable characters, passionate desires, deceptions, earthiness and sometimes true love. Its dysfunctional families evoke O'Neill, or Dancing at Lughnasa, as its lustiness reminds us of Harold Robbins.

This novel, from a smaller publisher, deserves to be heard on a wider stage.