Ethan Frome & Summer

by Edith Wharton, Elizabeth Strout (Introduction)

This edition presents Wharton's two most controversial stories, which she considered inseparable, in one volume for the first time. Set in frigid New England, both deal with sexual awakening and appetite and their devastating consequences. This text includes newly commissioned notes.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, American, 20th Century, Novels, Book Club, Short Stories

274 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1911

About the author

Edith Wharton emerged as one of America’s most insightful novelists, deftly exposing the tensions between societal expectation and personal desire through her vivid portrayals of upper-class life. Drawing from her deep familiarity with New York’s privileged “aristocracy,” she offered readers a keenly observed and piercingly honest vision of Gilded Age society.

Her work reached a milestone when she became the first woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, awarded for The Age of Innocence. This novel highlights the constraining rituals of 1870s New York society and remains a defining portrait of elegance laced with regret.

Wharton’s literary achievements span a wide canvas. The House of Mirth presents a tragic, vividly drawn character study of Lily Bart, navigating social expectations and the perils of genteel poverty in 1890s New York. In Ethan Frome, she explores rural hardship and emotional repression, contrasting sharply with her urban social dramas.

Her novella collection Old New York revisits the moral terrain of upper-class society, spanning decades and combining character studies with social commentary. Through these stories, she inevitably points back to themes and settings familiar from The Age of Innocence. Continuing her exploration of class and desire, The Glimpses of the Moon addresses marriage and social mobility in early 20th-century America. And in Summer, Wharton challenges societal norms with its rural setting and themes of sexual awakening and social inequality.

Beyond fiction, Wharton contributed compelling nonfiction and travel writing. The Decoration of Houses reflects her eye for design and architecture; Fighting France: From Dunkerque to Belfort presents a compelling account of her wartime observations. As editor of The Book of the Homeless, she curated a moving, international collaboration in support of war refugees.

Wharton’s influence extended beyond writing. She designed her own country estate, The Mount, a testament to her architectural sensibility and aesthetic vision. The Mount now stands as an educational museum celebrating her legacy.

Throughout her career, Wharton maintained friendships and artistic exchanges with luminaries such as Henry James, Sinclair Lewis, Jean Cocteau, André Gide, and Theodore Roosevelt—reflecting her status as a respected and connected cultural figure.
Her literary legacy also includes multiple Nobel Prize nominations, underscoring her international recognition. She was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature more than once.

In sum, Edith Wharton remains celebrated for her unflinching, elegant prose, her psychological acuity, and her capacity to illuminate the unspoken constraints of society—from the glittering ballrooms of New York to quieter, more remote settings. Her wide-ranging work—novels, novellas, short stories, poetry, travel writing, essays—offers cultural insight, enduring emotional depth, and a piercing critique of the customs she both inhabited and dissected.

Reviews

[Jenni · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton is one of those books that you just have to read. Ethan, a poor farmer who has seen much loss in his life now he is struggling, torn between his hypochondriac wife and his feelings for her cousin. It is a societal no, no, to divorce at that time. An intriguing read.

This piece of work is slightly edgier than Edith's normal witty prose. It is a quick read, but it packs a punch. It is a vintage classic and a fine piece of work for its time.

Summer was scandalous when it was released, and I found it disturbing. I did not like Charity as a character, and what was up with Royall? Seriously, creepy factor. But in true Edith style, she writes what others did not, and she did not shy away from any topic.
The story itself is well written I just could not get past the characters. Definitely not one of my favourites by Edith.

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls · Rating 5 out of 5]

This scholarly edition contains both of Wharton's short novels set in rural New England: Ethan Frome and Summer. An Introduction and Footnotes, as well as several essays and critical analysis pieces help context and insights for those who want to more deeply explore the stories. Wharton's unpublished (and perhaps unpublishable, due to its frankly explicit depiction of an incestuous sexual episode) fragment of "Beatrice Palmato" is also included.

Ethan Frome - 5 stars

Perhaps Wharton's most popular story, this short novel is set in a bleak winter in a small New England town, where a tragic figure of a man trapped in a loveless marriage (perhaps somewhat autobiographical for Wharton?) finds a glimmer of hope and love. Wharton piles on layer after layer of symbolism and subtlety, making the story as enjoyable to discuss and analyze as it is to read. Wharton would later write Summer, likewise set in rural New England, touching on many of the same themes but with a female protagonist.

Summer - 4 stars

Although Wharton is best known for her New York stories, Summer - like Ethan Frome - is set in a small, bleak New England town. The story of an uneducated young girl's summer fling with a more sophisticated young man is beautifully written and remains emotionally impactful despite more than a century's worth of changes to accepted social norms.

[LG · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you’ve heard of Wharton, you probably recognize Ethan Frome, published in 1911 and still her best-known novel. The companion piece is not nearly as famous, but I can see why they belong together. Although not set in upper-crust New York like most of Wharton’s fiction, both short novels offer just as fascinating an insight into the young lover’s hot-blooded struggle against polite society. Presenting the stories in chronological order, this edition offers an equivalent to a whole House of Mirth or Age of Innocence. Just don’t read Elizabeth Strout’s introduction first, which gives everything away.

Ethan’s story is touching in its simplicity. New England in winter, the biting frost, the colder marriage and crushing despair were all rendered beautifully in the 1993 movie starring Liam Neeson, superbly cast as the tragic hero. (Update: Hmm … I may have allowed to Hollywood dictate my interpretation of Ethan.) Reading Wharton’s crystalline sentences, the cinematic images replayed in my head, and every bit of foreshadowing stood out like black spruces in the snow, adding to the constant pang of knowing it can only end badly for everyone.

By her own admission, though, the author grew tired of the novel’s acclaim – understandable considering she went on to produce a total of some 60 works, including poetry, short stories, essays on writing, and books on war, travel and architecture. Still, Ethan continues to appeal. Could it partly be that, no matter how poetically logical the ending, the hero’s characters’ plight feels like the reader can still do something about it? Maybe that’s the ultimate effect of the narrator, whom Wharton thought about a great deal before deciding he would tell Ethan’s story. The framing chapters emphasize how many years have gone by, but, as one critic has said, it also gets in the way of the plot events’ realness. We don’t so much have a visceral reaction as that “formal feeling” Emily Dickinson wrote about.

Maybe it’s why, in 1917, Wharton gave Ethan a fellow sufferer in Charity Royall, the heroine of Summer. Everything Ethan was and did, Charity isn’t and will not – let’s just say her name belies her outlook. Yet she is every bit as trapped as he was, which makes her as compelling a character. Even her situation is as complicated as his was straightforward: she lives with Mr. Royall, the lawyer who “brought her down from the Mountain” when she was a little girl and his wife was still alive. She has his last name but isn’t his daughter; she had a chance to enroll in boarding school but declined because her widowed guardian would be lonely. Now 17, she hates everything, including her lonely widowed guardian.

If Charity is Ethan’s counterpart and Mr. Royall is her Zeena, then the Mattie of Summer is Lucius Harney, a fervent young architect from the city. The novel is as brief, but the plot wends and turns more, like the landscape around its small-town setting. The characters, too, are more substantial, especially the ostensible antagonist. This creates an even more wretched conflict among them, even though the atmosphere is all sun-warmed pastures and autumnal sparkle. Summer gives us seasonal imagery at its best.

Because I didn’t know anything about the novel, its ending surprised me and felt abrupt at first. But now that I think about it, Charity’s story not only complements Ethan’s but ultimately completes it. Reading both offers a thrilling study in contrasts and a rare glimpse of how an author continues to grow, sharpening her powers of perception and honing her craft.

[Zea · Rating 5 out of 5]

i feel like edith wharton basically perfected the writing of emotion and consciousness and then we all collectively sort of. forgot

[Robert Sheard]

Edith Wharton is known primarily for her novels of manners skewering the New York City aristocracy: The House of Mirth and The Age of Innocence. Ethan Frome is a departure in subject material, focusing instead on a western Massachusetts mountain town and its poor farming residents. But it’s still vintage Wharton in her use of language, structure, and irony.

Ethan is a young man from the fictional town of Starkfield–a symbolic name if ever one existed. He escapes the town to go to college and has dreams of becoming an engineer and living in a city. But then his father dies suddenly and his mother becomes seriously ill. So Ethan’s forced to give up his dream and return to the family farm.

After Ethan’s mother dies, he marries her caregiver, Zeena. Almost immediately it’s clear that the marriage is a dreadful idea. Zeena turns into a hypochondriac, Ethan is trapped, and their future together is bleak. Then Mattie Silver arrives. Mattie is Zeena’s cousin, come to help Zeena around the house. She’s young, charming, and beautiful. She and Ethan quickly fall in love. Mattie represents hope of a better life for Ethan, but…

The novel is narrated by an outsider, an engineer working temporarily in Starkfield. He’s stuck there over the winter and meets Ethan Frome by chance, ending up a guest in Ethan’s house one evening when they’re snowed in. We learn it’s 24 years since “the smash up.” The novel is the narrator’s discovery about the story of Ethan’s relationship with Zeena and Mattie before the smash up, and then a brief snapshot of their life since.

Wharton is exploring the idea of lives wasted and the tragedy for all three characters of being trapped into social, economic, and familial circumstances that are often beyond their control. The novel is filled with irony and Wharton’s typical satire. And having it narrated through flashbacks by an outsider adds layers of ambiguity that make this brief novel an intriguing read. It makes me want to reread her other novels now.

[Tifnie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oh my gosh - I can't read Summer after having read Ethan frome. Not a big fan of Edith Wharton.

Ethan Frome is about a late-20-something man; married, burdened, failing in his marriage and failing in his farming business. In comes Mattie, a wayward child of just 20 who captivates his heart. Ethan is all in a dither on how to act around her as his wife starts to realize having this young girl in her home is not the best idea. When his wife hires (another) girl to care for her during her failing health and orders Mattie to move out, Ethan must face not only how he feels but what he wants.

Normally this might prove to be a delicious story, however, writing a story of a man's feelings by a female author I find to be a bit tricky. Often, as is the case with this story, the male character is delivered more like a eunuch.

I realize that Ethan Frome is about a love you can't have or shouldn't have but I just couldn't bring forth from the pages that fire. That yearning - you'll die if you can't have it feeling of restricted love. I read it and all I could think of was he needed his balls back.

Pass...

[Kerry · Rating 5 out of 5]

The five stars are for Ethan Frome - such a beautifully written story and with an incredible sense of place. I loved it.
I also read the second novella in the book, Summer, to which I would give four stars. I enjoyed it very much but its emotional impact was less, and I feel sure it won't stay in my head the same way as Ethan will.

[Valeri Drach · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ethan and Charity, Edith Wharton’s two main characters in these two novellas, have brief windows of happiness. Both come in the form of love and both relationships evaporate quickly with social restraints. Edith Wharton herself, was forced in to a marriage at the age of 23 because, in the eyes of her family and society,to do anything else would have made her an old maid. In these two novellas, Ethan Frome and Summer, she turns her eyes to the Berkshires, to people stuck in a working class, New England towns, where there was little chance for escape or education to feed the imagination. What Edith Wharton had, which her characters in these two stories lacked was the means and talent to escape. Although she never married the man of her dreams, she had an affair that sustained her, although he was less than a virtuous man. She also befriended the love of her life, her soulmate, and remained so for the rest of their lives. He helped and edited her writing and Henry James was also a traveling companion and mentor. She gave much of herself to helping England during World War l and continued writing her sharp, witty accounts of greed, social class, and the plight of women. These two novellas are wonderful as well as heartbreaking. But always spot on!

[Janet · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a story about Charity, a young woman in a small New England village who becomes attracted to a “city man.” With vast socioeconomic differences, their ensuing romance doesn’t seem to have a future.

This is a story about place. Where the characters come from, or what opportunities are available to them, or not available, help to shape and determine their existence. Wharton paints an unsparing picture of life in a small town. Harsh, especially for the women.

This review only covers the novella Summer and not Ethan Frome, which is more widely read and dealt with on many GR pages.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book contains two novellas about unrequited love. One, Ethan From, takes place in the Winter and tackles the icy factor of a loveless marriage (while pining for another). The second, Summer, takes place (obviously) in the Summer and is decidedly more sultry, although still about a loveless marriage, and sacrifice, and compromise.

[Nick · Rating 5 out of 5]

All I can say is “wow!” This kept me reading. Beautifully written and heartbreaking.

[Emma · Rating 5 out of 5]

did not care for the ending>:/

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reviewing these two one at a time, here are my thoughts about Ethan Frome, followed by Summer:
The Constable Edith Wharton edition that I've just read contains both Ethan Frome and Summer, but I am reviewing them separately because whether or not Edith Wharton considered them 'inseparable' as claimed in the default description at Goodreads, they were published six years apart in 1911 and 1917 respectively; one is a short story and the other is a novella; and I read them separately too, with other books in between. Both are included in 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die, along with The House of Mirth (1905), Bunner Sisters (1916), The Age of Innocence (1920, which won the Pulitzer Prize), and Glimpses of the Moon (1922, see my review).

The Reef, however, isn't included in 1001 Books, and I wasn't surprised to find that in the Introduction to this edition, Michael Millgate says that although Henry James admired it (no doubt because it is the most Jamesian of Wharton's works), later critics have commonly been less certain of the quality of The Reef. It seems they have the same reservations as I do that the exploration of the central situation only succeeds in inflating it beyond all reasonable proportion. i.e. Anna Leath making a mountain out of a premarital molehill, but see my review for how I came round to the view that the novel is really about trust not sexual propriety.

Michael Millgate's Introduction to this edition of Ethan Frome and Summer really is excellent. Written for this 1965 edition, it predates a biography of Wharton, so its 23 pages include biographical details about her childhood, her unfortunate marriage and divorce, her life in France including her war service, and a good discussion of not only Ethan Frome and Summer but also her other works as well. Speculating before the availability of her private papers in the Yale Library, which were embargoed till 1968, he writes:

It is a familiar and curious point of speculation whether the inadequacy, in one way or another, of the men in Edith Wharton's life can be said to have influenced the presentation of her fictional heroes. Certainly the heroes are all, in the final analysis, less than heroic, unable to confront with sufficient strength or resolution the demands of the situations in which they find themselves, incapable of meeting the needs of the women who depend on them. (Introduction, p. 15)

Well, presumably there is an authoritative bio by now, and perhaps someone who's read it, can answer that question!

Anyway...

Ethan Frome is (as 1001 Books says) about sexual frustration and moral despair. Like Summer, it's set in a turn-of-the-century New England farming community, or what we might less charitably call the backblocks i.e. impoverished rural communities characterised by limited opportunity and populated by people with little education or wider experience of the world. The reader is introduced to Ethan Frome in the Prologue by an un-named stranger to the town, whose compassionate gaze reveals Ethan to be aged beyond his years, and crippled since a 'smash-up'. This narrator, alerting us to the small canvas of the township, learns the story from various informants though most of the dwellers in Starkfield, as in more notable communities, had had troubles of their own to make them comparatively indifferent to those of their neighbours. Wharton makes it clear from the outset that this is no romanticised pioneer community; although nearly all the characters are long-term residents born and bred there, social isolation adds profound loneliness to the troubles of these people.

To read the rest of my review of Ethan Frome, please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2019/11/24/e...

Summer fits nicely into Novellas in November and I'll be adding it to my Twitter feed with #NovNov.

As the excellent Introduction by Michael Millgate tells us, Summer and Ethan Frome are both set in the moribund back blocks of New England, apparently part of Edith Wharton's purpose deliberately to challenge the established literary image of the New England countryside, and he quotes from her autobiography A Backward Glance:

For years I had wanted to draw life as it really was in the derelict mountain villages of New England, a life even in my time, and a thousandfold more a generation earlier, utterly unlike that seen through the rose-coloured spectacles of my predecessors, Mary Wilkins and Sarah Orne Jewett. In those days the snow-bound villages of Western Massachusetts were still grim places, morally and physically: insanity, incest and slow mental and moral starvation were hidden away behind the paintless wooden house-fronts of the long village streets, or in the isolated farmhouses on the neighbouring hills; and Emily Brontë would have found as savage tragedies in our remoter valleys as on her Yorkshire moors. (Introduction, p.13)

What Millgate doesn't explain is how the wealthy and fashionable wife of a conventional man came to know this. Yes, Wharton got her hands dirty in her voluntary work during WW1, but that was literally a world away from the setting of this novella. What on earth could she have known about life as it really was? Who, living that life, was going to tell this rich, elegant stranger about it? Was it what's called 'common knowledge'? or not spoken about because it conflicted with America's view of itself? or was it demonising of poor and disadvantaged people, what we might call 'othering' today? I couldn't find anything specific about the mountain people of New England, but I found in a Wikipedia article about hillbillies, that stereotyping of rural Appalachians causes feelings of shame, self-hatred, and detachment [...] as a result of "culturally transmitted traumatic stress syndrome" and that they are blamed for their own economic hardships because of labelling as moonshiners and welfare cheats.

[After I'd finished my review, I found Simon's at Tredynas Days, and he says that Wharton set her story in the area similar to the Berkshires where the author had built a house and got to know the locality and its dour rural inhabitants. But he also goes on to question what kind of 'knowing' that might be, characterising it as passing through these places in her large car with Henry James. I think many contemporary readers might also feel a bit uneasy about the judgements Wharton passes on these people. What kind of 'knowing' takes place when a wealthy woman builds a house, presumably insulated from the fading town and its mountain inhabitants by extensive gardens and servants? Did she 'know'? Or did she absorb gossip, stereotyping and suspicion at some remove?]

Whatever about that, the central character in Summer is constantly reminded that she is well out of it when brought down from the mountain as a child, by the lawyer Royall. She is renamed as Charity, and she takes his surname, but everyone in the town of North Dormer knows more about her antecedents than she does and they won't forget it. All she knows is that she has been lucky to escape a sordid life among sordid people. And as you'd expect in a small town in an era where girls had only two options, marriage or spinsterhood, her prospects were compromised by her dubious personal history.

Two complications arise: as she enters adolescence Lawyer Royall is attracted to Charity and she also attracts the attention of Lucius Harney from out of town.

To read the rest of my review of Summer please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2019/11/25/s...

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ethan Frome - 5 stars
Summer - 3 stars

[Pat · Rating 4 out of 5]

These two stories are bundled together as one book, which I think makes a lot of sense. To me, both stories are quite similar.

In both stories, the central character is doomed to live a stark New England life. Both characters' lives are restricted by a conspiracy of social custom wielded by their family members:
- Ethan Frome could never leave his chronically ill wife Zeena, because, what would everyone else think?
- Charity cannot leave Mr. Royall, because, where else does she have to go?
It does not matter that both Zeena and Mr. Royall are some of THE most insufferable characters ever because, in the end, Ethan and Charity must stay true to them.

I generally enjoyed these books, my only gripe being that for how short they were, the stories did not move along swiftyl (maybe this is not the book's problem, but my own, it could be that I am actually getting worse at reading). What I really liked about these stories were their prose. It really stuck out to me, especially in passages describing nature. Some of my favorites:

From Ethan Frome:

"They drove slowly up the road between fields glistening under the pale sun, and then bent to the right down a lane edged with spruce and larch. Ahead of them, a long way off, a range of hills stained by mottlings of black forest flowed away in round white curves against the sky. The lane passed into a pine-wood with boles reddening in the afternoon sun and delicate blue shadows on the snow. As they entered it the breeze fell and a warm stillness seemed to drop from the branches with the dropping needles. Here the snow was so pure that the tiny tracks of wood-animals had left on it intricate lace-like patterns, and the bluish cones caught in its surface stood out like ornaments of bronze." Page 83.

From Summer:

"The nights were cold, with a dry glitter of stars so high up that they seemed smaller and more vivid. Sometimes, as Charity lay sleepless on her bed through the long hours, she felt as though she were bound to those wheeling fires and swinging with them around the great black vault." Pages 208-209.

"Through the small square of glass in the opposite wall Charity saw a deep funnel of sky, so black, so remote, so palpitating with frosty stars that her very soul seemed to be sucked into it." Page 228.

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I particularly LOVED Ethan Frome; I can’t believe I made it through all my schooling without ever having this as assigned reading! It is exquisitely written with twists and turns I didn’t expect, and so depicts how trapped Ethan is within his life. Summer was also enjoyable but not as engaging as Ethan Frome; I like how these were grouped together as they are a pair in the ideas they present. Super enjoyable, and I’ll be reading more of this author. The added bonus on this edition was the introduction written my favorite author, Elizabeth Strout!

[Barb · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wharton is an amazing author. She is the master of metaphor, and inevitable gathering of the black clouds of doom. Ethan Frome lives in the fictional town of Starkfield, the perfect cold place for his stark, miserable existence. He is quiet and stoic, and doomed from the beginning.
By contrast, Summer is filled with light and warmth. Although both stories are cautionary tales about human relationships and marriage.

[Will Plunkett · Rating 3 out of 5]

I seem to run across these books more and more: a story well-told, but not a positive story told. I can't say I liked reading what happened to the characters in both novellas, but Wharton structured the stories with good dialogue and description. Their choices are poor, despite the advice and warnings given by those to them. Reality isn't always good; I just don't need to keep being reminded of that fact when I read.

[Eugene Novikov · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not as sharp or as wonderfully arch as "House of Mirth" or "Age of Innocence" -- the rural setting of both novellas does seem to dull Wharton's prose a bit, though her eye for credible tragedy remains. The grim inevitability of the last 40-or-so pages of "Summer," in particular, packs a real wallop.

[Marianne Evans · Rating 5 out of 5]

Endurance dwelled in acute loneliness, isolated and a prisoner of a sickly wife reminds me of what my mother always says, "A family is a dictatorship ruled by the sickest member."
Both of these stories are all about hopelessness striving in hopeful hearts. Wharton describes beautifully the painful hearts, the drops of rain, the sound of the wind. She was a fabulous writer.

[Matthew Richey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Only read Ethan Frome for now (may read Summer later).

It was well-written and I enjoyed the prose. I don't like reading about people without moral character. Quick (too hasty) judgement - a lot like Jane Austen but without the concern for virtue.

[Cynthia Lewis · Rating 1 out of 5]

I've read that this book has finally been stricken from many high school reading lists. Huzzah! No more teens tortured by this turd of a tome.

[JulieG_Quebec · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ethan Frome terminé 10 oct 2021

[Brandon · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 stars for Ethan Frome, 4 for Summer.

[Ava · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read "Summer"

[cloudy · Rating 5 out of 5]

edith wharton master of the tragicomedy??

[anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

what the fuck 😭

[Jackie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Edith Wharton queen of writing depressing endings

[Simon Mcleish · Rating 3 out of 5]

Originally published on my blog here and here in February 2002.

Ethan Frome

There is often a tendency to romanticise American rural life in the days before modern communication, because people admire what they call the "pioneer spirit". When reading accounts from the time, such as the bleaker parts of Laura Ingalls Wilder's memoirs or Sinclair Lewis' Main Street, or this novel, it is clear that it was not in the least an idyllic existence; it was lonely hard work for (in many cases) little return.

The story of Ethan Frome comes in two parts. The framing chapters, a foreword and an epilogue, are told by a stranger who comes to the aptly named New England town of Starkfield in midwinter. There he becomes interested in the figure of Frome, a poor farmer injured in a sleigh accident twenty years previously. The main part of the novel tells the tale of the few days leading up to the accident. Frome's wife Zenobia has over the years since they married (when her vivaciousness provoked a desperate longing in Ethan, lonely after the death of his parents) become a cantankerous invalid, turning the farm's meagre profits into faddish patent medicines. A younger, even poorer, relation of Zenobia's, Mattie Silver, helps Ethan care for her and look after the housework.

The natural consequence of this is that Ethan finds himself increasingly drawn to Mattie, and when Zenobia announces that she has decided to throw her out and hire a girl who will be better at housework, he considers running away with her. But he can't even afford to do this and is driven into a corner from which there appears to be no way to make his life happier.

The other theme of Ethan Frome, then, is doomed desire, first that prompted by desperation (Ethan for Zenobia) then that of one sufferer for another (Ethan and Mattie for each other). The cold winters in which both parts are set, the quietness of the earth covered by drifting snow, form a smothering backdrop for the story which is as appropriate as the heat for Ethan Frome's companion novel of similar themes, Summer. The weather is as symbolic here as it is in the writing of Thomas Hardy.

There is much that is imperfect about Ethan Frome. One of its most obvious flaws is a frequently repeated criticism: the narrator, an outsider to Starkfield, suddenly knows a great deal about the precise actions and feelings of the intensely private Ethan of twenty years earlier. This is clearly a nonsensical conceit on Wharton's part, but the way in which the story is constructed is to a large extent dictated by the way in which she has set up her ending. Flaws apart, Ethan Frome has a strong impact; its atmosphere seems to me as memorable as, say, that generated in Turn of the Screw.

Summer

The companion piece to Ethan Frome, Summer has the same remote New England setting (in a town named, appropriately, North Dormer which is just like the earlier novel's Starkfield), but in the opposite time of year. It is a summer which doesn't end, even though the story is spread over several months.

Charity Royall is brought up as the ward of the only lawyer in North Dormer; she comes from the Mountain, a community of vagabonds outside the town viewed as moral degenerates. Grown up, she fends off the advances of her guardian and falls in love with Lucius Harney, a visitor to the town related to its principal citizens. The novel is basically a battle between their desire and the reactions of those around them, complicated by Charity's feelings of unworthiness because of her background.

Charity's sexuality is much more explicitly described than that of Ethan Frome, though the novel is entirely possible because of her innocence - today she would just sleep with Harney, and that would be the end of it. Things are not uncomplicated; among the aspect of sex which are mentioned is a back street abortionist. Charity's life is far freer than Frome's, as she is able to make trips away from North Dormer, but she is trapped in the same kind of way by her background and situation. The earlier novel works better, though, perhaps because the sense of suffocation is stronger.

[Brenda Cregor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Allow me to begin this review with an admission:
I
hate
adultery.
When I read Madame Bovary, I was like, "Die!"
When I read Anna Karenina, I was like, "Die!"
King David: "Die!"
The man whose family I used to babysit for when I was a teenager: "Die!"
There is nowhere in any universe, in any poetry, fiction, or prose, where I find adultery to be justified.
I despise it.
[Okay, perhaps, wanting people to die when they commit adultery is a bit harsh, there is just no other idea, literal or figurative, which encompasses my feelings regarding perpetrators of this most heinous trust-destroying love-demolishing act.]
Little did I know that the story, Ethan Frome, was going to delve into this subject matter [though Edith Wharton is not above this topic], and little did I know I would be so devastated for STUPID Ethan, ugh!
A loveless marriage to a harping hysterical woman is dreadful.
I will admit. I wanted Ethan to be able to leave with Mattie and never turn back, but his fate was WORST than death for the adulterous-hearted sensitive souled, Ethan Frome---his consequence was almost too horrific, even for me, a "Die all adulterers" woman, like me.
Edith Wharton is a genius.

By the way, this short story is BEAUTIFULLY written! Delicious prose!