Will I love Ethan Frome?

I find the very word “novella” delicious. Edith Wharton is one of my favorite writers, and this book is near the top of my deliciousness list. How can you resist a book with a killer first line like this: “I had the story, bit by bit, from various people, and, as generally happens in such cases, each time it was a different story.”

The setting is so important here, too: a bitter Massachusetts winter that reflects the tale’s somber mood. Unlike the characters in Wharton’s The Age of Innocence, the characters here are not of the upper class, but… show more.

I always marvel at the feat Wharton achieves in delivering this vivid story of love and sacrifice in such a slim volume—but part of Ethan Frome’s power derives from its brevity. Set in a New England farming town during the upheavals of the Industrial Revolution, Wharton’s novel tells the tale of how the titular Ethan Frome became “the ruin of a man.”

Every time I read it, I’m captured by the struggles and indignities of Frome’s life as he ekes out a living on an unproductive farm under the eye of his unsympathetic wife, Zeena. When joy and hope… show more.

Gorgeous writing about love and the human condition and how sometimes where we land is so far from what we imagined.

Edith Wharton herself seems like a heroine for the ages. This is a great introduction to her writing if you aren’t familiar with it, and the (too) short mystery will transport you.

This is a very short book, only around 100 pages, so you could read it in an afternoon. But, oh my, does this book pack a punch!

They made a movie out of it, so just shows there’s plenty in this very short novella to deal with. Written in 1911 and set in the mountains of New England in the U.S., it’s the story of a married couple – Ethan and Zeena – whose lives are changed forever when the wife’s charming cousin Mattie Silver comes to stay.

The characterisation is brilliant, the setting of the harsh winters of New… show more.

This is a novella of social criticism, exposing the economic realities of America and the suffering they both allow and produce. (That, at least, is my take on it.) And though it was first published in 1911 by a writer, Edith Wharton, better known for her novels of manners, the social criticism remains valid today. (Which, again, is my take on both the novella and the state of America today.) In Mattie, Ethan envisions his best hope of escape from a miserable marriage and endless drudgery, but she ends up a cripple. Then Wharton won’t let her die; she keeps… show more.