Virtual Town and Gown Literary Discussion Group: “Ethan Frome” & “Summer” (Registration)

This month we’re reading Ethan Frome and Summer by Edith Wharton. Get the books at the Library!

Register with sbramble@dobbsferrylibrary.org to get the Zoom link — please indicate the title and date of the program you are registering for!

Thought Edith Wharton is best known for her cutting contemplation of fashionable New York, Ethan Frome and Summer are set in small New England towns, far from Manhattan’s beau monde. These thematically linked short novels display Wharton’s characteristic criticism of society’s hypocrisy and her daring exploration of the destructive consequences of sexual appetite. From the wintry setting of Ethan Frome, where a man hounded by community standards is destroyed by the very thing that might bring him happiness, to the florid town of Summer, where a young woman’s first romance projects her into a dizzying rite of passage, Wharton captures beautifully the urges and failures of human nature.