Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome (1911) is a novel about emotional frigidity. Set in New England in the fictional town of Starkfield, Massachusetts, the story concerns Ethan Frome and his cantankerous wife Zeena. Mattie comes to help her cousin Zeena keep house, and her youthful beauty and good humor fascinate Ethan. Zeena decides to replace Mattie with a hired housemaid, but the lovers find it hard to separate and decide to sledge into a tree and end their lives.