Ethan Frome

Written by Edith Wharton and Susan Kingsley

Narrated by Multiple Narrators

Life is always hard for the poor, in any place and at any time. Ethan Frome is a farmer in Massachusetts. He works long hours every day, but his farm makes very little money. His wife, Zeena, is a thin, grey woman, always complaining, and only interested in her own ill health. Then Mattie Silver, a young cousin, comes to live with the Fromes, to help Zeena and do the housework. Her bright smile and laughing voice bring light and hope into the Fromes' house - and into Ethan's lonely life. But poverty is a prison from which few people escape ...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Release date: Jan 10, 2008
• ISBN: 9780194210768

Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton (1862–1937) was an American novelist—the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for her novel The Age of Innocence in 1921—as well as a short story writer, playwright, designer, reporter, and poet. Her other works include Ethan Frome, The House of Mirth, and Roman Fever and Other Stories. Born into one of New York’s elite families, she drew upon her knowledge of upper-class aristocracy to realistically portray the lives and morals of the Gilded Age.

Reviews for Ethan Frome

[rsairs_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A remarkable book. With a spare style it is poetic and brings the reader into the emotional turmoil of the main character. It is Not a book for most young people. I'm sure many could understand it, but I'm not sure they could measure the depth of the questions with much personal grief. I am distressed at the number of readers here at LibraryThing who read this in middle school or high school. I hope some of them will give it another try later in life, perhaps after marriage, perhaps after adult poverty, perhaps after having or witnessing the long struggle of chronic illness, perhaps after a spell of prolongued social isolation.

[bcrowl399 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I read this book when I was a budding teenager. Now I've read it again because I just couldn't remember it that well. There are some very pleasant descriptive scenes about winter in New England. The character's emotions are genuine and forceful. The story has some very intense passages, which I enjoyed. The ending is somewhat of a letdown.

[arubabookwoman · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

"He seemed a part of the mute melancholy landscape, an incarnation of its frozen woe, with all that was warm and sentient in him fast bound below the surface....he lived in a depth of moral isolation too remote for casual access."This is one of those classics that is assigned reading in U.S. high schools, probably because it is so short. At least it was in my 10th grade back in the 1960's. And I hated it then, and I've heard from others how had to read it as a young teenager who also hated it. However, many years later, in older middle age, I read it again, and loved it. I recently reread it again as part of the Wharton buddy read on Litsy, and yes, it's still an excellent book.New England farmer, Ethan Frome, is living a life of isolation and quiet despair. In an unhappy marriage with his invalid wife Zeena, the only bright spot in his life is Zeena's cousin Mattie Silver, who is Zeena's caregiver. The harsh environment of a New England winter in an isolated village plays a big part in the tale.Unlike many of Wharton's better-known books in which characters are members of NYC high society and the American aristocracy, in Ethan Frome, her characters are the struggling poor and rural underclass. In many ways, I admire the books in which Wharton focuses on the lower classes more than those in which she focuses on the upper classes.Highly recommended.4 starsFirst line: "I had the story, bit by bit, from various people, and, as generally happens in such cases, each time it was a different story

[puddintame-358807 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a very well written and constructed, but rather nasty and ugly story. I would recommend it most to fans of Shirley Jackson. Others may find that their dislike for the plot overwhelms any admiration for the prose.

[electrascaife · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Ethan Frome lives a life of constant hardship on his unproductive farm with his sickly and bitter wife. This is the story of how they came to such a miserable existence.I admit that I came to this one dragging my feet. I had previously suffered through The Age of Innocence and didn't like it at all, but Ethan Frome took me completely by a very pleasant surprise. I was engaged in the story from the start and could hardly wait to hear what happened to the characters. It manages to be grim *and* exciting at the same time, and I really enjoyed it.

[dele2451 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Poor Ethan gets a cold lesson on how cruel love can me.

[angelalam-300700 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Unfortunately, this bleak book shaped the first half of my life...until recently when I started reading the Power of Now.

Reread the book and realized this was Frome's attempt at describing a place through its people. Not as bleak the second time around, this novel is a brilliant piece about place, not people. Wish I had first read it when I was 30, not 15.

[john257hopper · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This novella was my first book by this author, but it won't be my last. I enjoyed her writing style, which is quite straightforward, with evocative descriptions of the landscape. In the first chapter Ethan Frome is a broken middle aged man, and the rest of the book explores the his past twenty years earlier, his relationship with his bitter wife Zeena, and his passion for her cousin, Mattie. In the end, this passion results in tragedy, leaving a sad ending for all concerned. Quite moving and a good read.

[sean191 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is the first novel I've read from Wharton. There was a lot care that went into the writing and the story, thinking you know how it ends and that dread hanging over and the dread hanging over the whole tale...and then the twist ...tt was spectacular.

[ekerstein-986148 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Didn't appreciate this book until I lived in New England.

[lethalmauve · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Between a 3 and a 4, there seems to be nothing more fascinating and guiltily sexier than an unconsummated love affair where every stolen glance and calculated move bring forth a sense of danger at the expense of constrained encounters and moments. It muddles with the mind and the heart then sets desire more ablaze, more aflame as if the Object of Desire has turned into an arsonist. Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome is no stranger to them. The bleak and cold landscape of its setting mark by its people's collective pity and one foreigner's fascination further juxtapose the undisclosed and tensed passion between Ethan Frome and his wife's cousin Mattie Silver. All this behind, perhaps the peripheral vision, of his sallow wife Zeena. The tragedy of such a story is not much on the implied illicit affair but on death's criminal charges upon trying to hold on to what should have been lost and let go. The right blend of depressing and haunting. Rousseau has put it well when he once said "So long as we desire, we can do without happiness."

[andjhostet-527429 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Very interesting book that I might need to read again to fully digest. The description of winter was great, starting beautiful and wonderous, but the descriptions start to wear on the reader, slowly getting more and more oppressive as the story went on, culminating in the cause of the "accident." The accident was a cruel twist, leading to a tragic, but satisfyingly fitting end.

A great read for a cold night in winter. Can be read in a single sitting.

[drfuriosa · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Not a favorite.

[andystardust · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Can't account for how it's taken me so long to get to this slim volume, which is just as juicy as they say. In retrospect, I am struck by the fact that Wharton chose to make her narrator an engineer, a profession that would have been denied her, Zenobia, and Mattie because of their sex and denied Ethan because of the obligations of farm and family. It's like while chronicling the dead-end rural life of late 19th century New England, Wharton acknowledges that an alternative exists for those lucky enough to be born with the right gender and the right resources. The edition I read includes a great introduction by Elizabeth Ammons, which among other things notes that Wharton may have been an outlier by forging an unlikely career as an accomplished author, but less so when it came to reflecting and even casually expressing commonly held white supremacist notions. Ammons also notes Wharton filed for divorce just two years after publishing this.

[k6gst · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Louis Auchincloss, a favorite of mine, thought very highly of Edith Wharton, and wrote a short biography. They were from the same world, though separated by a couple of generations. I found this charmer about doomed, wasted lives, forbidden passion, and deathwish tobogganing in the bleakest patch of late 19th century New England to be more fun when I read the dialogue aloud in an old-timey Yankee accent. The ending is a bang-up twist. I enjoyed it, but I’m ready to read about rich people’s problems again.

[charlie68_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Dark and shadowy and full of foreboding. Predictable near the end, but the epilogue isn't.

[cavernism · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I reread this because I read it in high school and HATED it. It is a big ball of misery - I wanted to read it again, partially because I wanted to see if knowing how depressing it is going into it would make it a better read. And it did - it's really well-written story. But also now I need something extremely cheerful to read...

[booklover3258 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It's Tiny Book Tuesday! This gem is part of the 1001 books to read before you die list. I absolutely loved this book from beginning to end. It's about a married couple whose wife's cousin comes to live with them. The husband falls madly in love with the cousin but keeps it secret from everyone. I did not see the ending coming and was shocked! Very sad indeed.

[n.w.moors-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Ethan Frome is a classic. I don't remember ever reading it though I saw the movie with Liam Neeson and Patricia Arquette a long time ago. Both of my sons love this book and talk about it frequently. The younger one mentioned it recently, and I decided to give it a read. Ethan Frome is married to Zeena, a hypochondriac. They're very poor but have taken in Zeena's cousin Mattie Silver to help Zeena around the house. Mattie is everything Zeena isn't; she's young and a breath of fresh air in Ethan's life.This book is deservedly a classic. The pacing of the plot is excellent with the beginning and end told by a third-party narrator and the main story told as it happened. The setting is western Massachusetts in the small fictional town of Starkfield, and the author captures the scenery and time period well. The dialogue fits, and the ending is a surprise. I'm glad they encouraged me to read this book. It truly is a must-read.

[bookconcierge · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Digital audio narrated by C M Hebert From the book jacket: Ethan Frome works his unproductive farm and struggles to maintain a bearable existence with his difficult, suspicious, and hypochondriac wife, Zeena. But when Zeena’s vivacious cousin enters their household as a hired girl, Ethan finds himself obsessed with her and with the possibilities for happiness she comes to represent.My reactions:I love Edith Wharton’s writing. I love the way she explores relationships and unfulfilled desires. The tension is palpable, the yearning almost unendurable. She’s a little heavy-handed with the allegory / metaphor in this case. The setting is Starkfield, Massachusetts, in winter; as if the reader needs a reminder of how depressing and lacking in color Ethan’s life is. Though I was reading in the midst of a summer heat wave, I felt chilled. And then I felt that spark of attraction between Ethan and Mattie. Felt Ethan’s heart soar with the possibilities, only to sink with the realization that he was trapped in a device of his own making. C M Hebert does a fine job narrating the audio book. He reads at a fine pace, and his tone is suitable to the material. After listening, however, I also picked up the text and read through several passages. I think I prefer the text so that I can savor Wharton’s writing.

[gabarito-3 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I adored this book as a teenager, I remember it extremely vividly. I wonder what I would think of it 20 years later, I want to re-read this soon.

[narshkite · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I read this to satisfy a Book Riot Read Harder Challenge: Read a book you were assigned and hated or did not finish. Positive Bonnie thought "You hated Faulkner in college and have come to love his work, maybe the same will happen for Ethan Frome." Positive me is feeling mighty disappointed because this is straight up shit. The book is far worse than I remembered. The first half is nothing but unbelievably boring people doing mundane things. Think Big Brother without the possibility of sex. The story is so loaded with symbolism (oh the barren cold!) that I get why high school teachers love it as a teaching tool, but for the common reader it is ridiculous. The second half pivots into nauseating melodrama acted out by people who, until the very moment of DRAMA suffered from clinically flat affect. Suddenly they long for one another in a manner common among 12 year old girls and those diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder and launch themselves into a tragic final act that made me laugh so hard I almost gave the book another star for bringing the (clearly unintentional) fun. You will never look at pairs sledding the same again.

[melissalenhardt · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I'm sure if I read this as part if a class and could discuss the symbolism, over arching themes and foreshadowing I would have enjoyed Ethan Frome more. As it is, I just thought it was depressing and a little shallow. But, hey, I read the entire book in a few hours so at least I didn't waste a bunch of time on it. For that reason, and I like Edith Wharton, it gets three stars.

[rainpebble_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton; (5*); VMC; the Classics; New England; (dark); VIRAGO MONTHLY AUTHOR READ; (1911)One of Wharton's very best, if not her best! The story is about the seamier side of life and what can happen in a cold clime when one makes a snap decision. Sometimes one ends up paying for that second in time for the remainder of their lives. This is a wonderful, but dark, Wharton novel. Very intense and very good. Highly recommended.

[deltaqueen50 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton is a haunting tragedy told in a quiet subdued manner that nevertheless I found emotional and moving. The author wastes not a single word in this short bleak novel that speaks so eloquently. I was totally taken up by this story which I read by internet installments through the Daily Lit program. Originally published in 1911, it is set in a fictitious New England village and tells the sad story of Ethan Frome, his wife Zeena, and Mattie a young relative of Zeena’s who has come to live with the Fromes’ in order to help the sickly Zeena. Ethan develops feelings for Mattie, and we learn that she returns these feelings. Of course Zeena picks up on this and makes arrangements for a serving girl to be hired and for Mattie to leave. At different points in the story I was sympathetic to all three of these characters. They were caught up in something that could never end well but Edith Wharton’s ending left me speechless. This was a story that pointed out exactly how trapped people were by the rules of society, and in particular how difficult it was for a woman to chose any path that was not strictly what was required of her. This beautifully written novella evokes feelings of pain, isolation, desperation and, of course, regret. The cold, sparse setting was perfect for this sad morality tale, but a word of warning, this book is not for people who are looking for a happy ending. For me, Ethan Frome was a story to savour and will long be a story that I remember as just about perfect.

[jennysbookbag.com · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I'm not an Edith Wharton fan, but I enjoyed this. Nice ending.

[pilgrimjess · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

“They seemed to come suddenly upon happiness as if they had surprised a butterfly in the winter woods.” An engineer finds himself spending the winter in the small New England town of Starkfield. The narrator becomes intrigued by a mysterious and isolated local farmer Ethan Frome who scrapes out a meagre living whilst tending to his demanding wife Zeena. He sets out to learn about Frome's life and the tragic accident that Ethan had some twenty years earlier. The narrator questions the locals but during a violent snowstorm he is forced into an overnight stay at the Frome homestead. He finally comes to learn the details of Ethan’s “smash-up”.Ethan Frome is a tale of missed opportunities and of characters trapped in circumstances they seem unable to escape. Moral and social constraints on individual desire is perhaps the book's most prominent theme. Again and again, Wharton displays the hold that social convention has on Ethan. Caring for the sick and the lame become to define Ethan’s life. Firstly years before the novel begins he tends to his ailing mother and when she dies he has to care for his hypochondriac wife. Much of the imagery in the book is built around cold, ice and snow thus the author is able to emphasize that the harsh New England's winters can have a psychologically stifling force. Most readers will no doubt agree that whilst we initially find beauty in the drifts, flakes, and icicles, but after a prolonged period of time these same wintry scenes often become oppressive. So the weather becomes more and more bleak in tune with the tone of this tale.This is only a novella and as such quite a quick read but is nonetheless a powerful tale filled with rich, at times unsettling, vocabulary. Well worth the read IMHO.

[librisissimo · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Substance: What was audacious and ground-breaking in 1911 is just old-fashioned and obvious today.The plot was clear as crystal from the end of chapter one (yes, she even writes that clichéd line, among others); however, the arc of the story is well-crafted, and the seeds of the final tragedy are fairly planted.Unfortunately, Ethan is boring, and Mattie is too too precious; the most interesting character is Zeena, who hints at submerged suspicions that Wharton never really develops, and who would have made a satisfying psychological study if she had been treated as something more than just an obstacle to Ethan's happiness.In addition, I don't think Wharton really motivates his change from dutiful responsible-ness to reckless irresponsibility between one chapter and the next (the motivations are accessible, just not explained).Style:Wharton overuses suggestive punctuation, and the narrative is full of annoying and intrusive slang-quotes - almost every paragraph had one or more words marked out, and all of them are now part of our everyday language, but the sole idiomatic word I didn't know had none.As for historical "color" and regional description, there is more and better writing in Laura Ingalls Wilder's books.

[addictedtomorphemes · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Ethan Frome by Edith WhartonBlackstone Audio, narrated by C.M. HebertI think this may have been Wharton's warning to her readers to avoid making a hasty decision on whom you will marry. Avoid the shrews! Ethan Frome was the most handsome man in his little town of Starkfield, Massachusetts. He was a quiet man with dreams of becoming an engineer. He thought running his father's farm would be temporary, but he was devoted to caring for his ailing parents before they died. He received help one winter from a woman named Zeena; and once both parents were gone, Ethan realized he had gotten used to her and asked her to stay. They married and shortly after, she started evidencing what surely must have been hypochondria (and general laziness). Her days were spent lying in bed with her false teeth in a glass, complaining about her symptoms, and working Ethan to the bone to provide for her. When Ethan was 28 and Zeena 35, they took in Zeena's cousin, Mattie Silver. She was to help with the household chores and whatever else Zeena desired. She was there for about a year when Ethan started becoming quietly fascinated by her happiness and vibrancy--such a polar opposite from his wife and his life in general. Zeena notices, and we witness what transpires from her jealousy, manipulation, and mean-spiritedness. Ethan has been given one difficulty after another in his life and takes it on the chin. You can't help but wish for him to be pulled from his life's downward spiral and have his brief moments of hope for a different life to be fulfilled.

[stevetempo_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Most excellent!...her style is unmatched...my second favorite of the three of her books I have read so far....Age of Innocence is No. 1