The two families suddenly realize that they need nothing from each other. That the terrifying intimacy is the province of the young couple. So they can relax.
The Reivers notice that none of the Wards is dark-skinned, or fat, r dressed in loud colors, or possesses frightening ghetto accents. Several of them are distinguished people. That the Wards, puzzlingly, seem resigned and not at all jubilant about a marriage that twenty years before would have been unthinkable.
The Wards notice that the Reivers are not the lords of the earth. That neither are they limp-wristed white liberals who are so easy to despise. Nor the trash who lined the school steps, howling and spitting, in South Boston and Little Rock. One or two Reivers are plump, and several are badly dressed in a way that cannot be put down to New England Parsimony.
An incredibly condescending review from the Times. Fucking Brits.
