Book summary

This tragic short novel tells the tale of Ethan Frome, who lives an isolated life in cold New England. When his mother dies, he marries his cousin Zeena for companionship, rather than for love. When they hire Mattie Silver as a live-in household helper, Ethan and the young Mattie fall desperately in love. Inevitably, Zeena discovers the affair.

Media reviews

"The book to the making of which I brought the greatest joy, and the fullest ease, was 'Ethan Frome'. For years I had wanted to draw life as it really was in the derelict mountain village of New England, a life... utterly unlike that seen through the rose-colored spectacles of my predecessors, Mary Wilkins and Sarah Orne Jewett... 'Ethan Frome' was written after I had spent ten years in the hill-region where the scene is laid, during which years I had come to know well the aspect, dialect, and mental and moral attitudes of the hill-people."