In the frozen hills of Starkfield, Massachusetts, a man named Ethan Frome has spent twenty years tending his farm and his sickly wife, Zeena. When Zeena's young cousin Mattie arrives to help with the household, something awakens in Ethan - a desperate, forbidden longing that threatens to shatter the grim stillness of his existence. Wharton builds their love in whispers and glances, in the small moments they steal together, until the weight of necessity and duty becomes unbearable. What follows is one of American literature's most devastating climaxes, an act of despair that leaves nothing but ruin in its wake. Written with Wharton's characteristic precision and cold fury, this novella captures something essential about the cost of living a life half-lived, of wanting what one cannot have, of how the coldest landscapes are often the ones we build around ourselves. It stings long after the final page.
