American writer Edith Wharton published the novel, Ethan Frome in 1911. It takes place in the made-up Massachusetts town of Starkfield. The book was turned into a movie, Ethan Frome (1993). The book is a framed story. An unknown male narrator who is visiting the area for business spends winter in Starkfield in the frame story. Around the village, he notices a limping, silent man who nevertheless appeals to him with his bearing and behavior. This is Ethan Frome, a stalwart of the neighborhood who has lived here his entire life. As "the most stunning figure in Starkfield," "the ruin of a man," and with a "careless forceful gaze, in spite of a lameness checking each movement like the yank of a chain," Frome is characterized by the narrator. The narrator seeks to discover more about him out of curiosity. He learns that Frome's limp resulted from an injury sustained in a "smash-up" twenty-four years earlier, but further information is withheld. The narrator also learns little else from Frome's neighbors, aside from the fact that Ethan's attempt at higher education decades earlier was derailed by his father's sudden illness following an injury, which forced him to return to the farm to help his parents and never leave again.
