Ethan Frome (Paperback)

Edith Whartons novels and short stories are full of her humorous understanding of the upper classes. She left America for France beginning in 1907 and stayed during World War 1. Even though a foreigner she remained and helped the refugees wherever she could. Ethan Frome is a grim tale of retribution told so that it appears to be a transcription of real life. A discouraged New England farmer and his hypochondriac wife are living a desolate life. Things change when the wifes cousin, a young girl who still finds joy in life, comes to visit them. The farmer and the young girl fall in love and plot to leave their impossible situation by running their sled into a tree. The accident does not kill them, but instead leaves them invalids to be taken care of by the farmers wife.