Ethan Frome

As a departure from Edith Wharton's customary novels of urbane New York life, Ethan Frome takes the reader to rural Massachusetts and the small, closed community of Starkfield.

At fifty-two, Ethan Frome is a broken man who, in the words of the narrator, already looks 'as if he was dead and in hell'. His tragic tale began many years earlier when he was struggling to run an unproductive farm and overcome the despair of living with his suspicious, hypochondriac wife, Zeena. 

Into their home came Mattie Silver, a vibrant young woman who comes to represent all the joy and spirit that is lacking in Ethan's own life. As love grows between them, Mattie and Ethan embark on a desperate quest to find a way they can be together forever. 

Spare, passionate and immensely moving, Ethan Frome may be Edith Wharton's most enduring and widely read novel.