Ethan Frome

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.