He named his five favorite novellas of unconsummated loves for The Daily Beast. One title on the list:Ethan FromeRead about another novella on the list.
by Edith Wharton
Ethan Frome is the story of a docile husband who lives with his sickly wife and his wife’s impoverished niece, who has nowhere to turn except to work as a housemaid for her aunt. The wife is an embittered, odious, and vigilant presence in the house. But one evening, while the wife is away in another town for treatment, the two sit face to face and during a tremulous moment when both are about to avow their love, the cats break a pickle bowl to which the wife was attached. The wife suddenly returns and the couple is never even able to speak their love. They make a suicide pact, but this, too, like everything else in their brief love, fails.
Ethan Frome is among John Mullan's ten best women writing as men in literature and Lynda Resnick's best books.
--Marshal Zeringue
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