One of American fiction's finest and most intense narratives, Ethan Frome tells a story of ill-starred lovers and their tragic destinies.  Ethan works his unproductive farm and struggles to maintain a bearable existence with his difficult, suspicious, and hypochondriac wife, Zeenie. But when Zeenie's vivacious cousin enters their household as a 'hired girl', Ethan finds himself obsessed with her and with the possibilities for happiness she comes to represent.