Ethan Frome

The New York Times called Ethan Frome,"A compelling and haunting story." Set in a fictional New England town, Edith Wharton’s novel, “Ethan Frome”, creates a narrative in flashback that ultimately reveals an ironic turn of events in the lives of its characters. Employing a theme she would visit again in her later novel “The Age of Innocence”, Wharton describes the plight of a decent man trapped in a loveless marriage who finds himself drawn hopelessly in love with another woman. While the setting and ultimate outcome are very different than that later novel, the ultimate result is the same; a man broken by the lure of true passion.