Ethan Frome is the story of a young man by the name of...you guessed it, Ethan Frome. Poor Ethan is married to a much older harpy who constantly suffers from “the sickness” and pretty much makes life miserable for the poor fellow. Only Ethan doesn’t really realize how miserable he is until his wife’s cousin Mattie, who moved in to help take care of Zeena, is about to be sent away. Ethan and Mattie realize they are in love and do not want to live without each other. Unfortunately Ethan cannot afford to move away and support two wives at once. So of course the reasonable thing to do is to take a wild sled ride. If you want to know how the sled ride ends, you’ll have to read the book. I will say this about the ending, Thomas Hardy would have been proud.
Ethan Frome is one of several books I’ll be reading with my friend Karen in preparation for my vacation in Boston. We are reading books that take in New England and then visiting the areas where they were located. So more information on Ethan will be posted at some point next month. If I’m lucky, I’ll even get a look at the sled.
