ETHAN FROME

William Hope offers a sensitive performance of Edith Wharton's poignant story of Ethan and Zeena Frome and Mattie Silver, the young woman who brings a bit of warmth to their frozen lives. As the narrator pieces together Frome's tale, Hope makes the "stinging whiteness" of winter in Starkfield, Massachusetts, palpable. His rhythmic, almost droning, tone at times has the same effect as a heart beating--sometimes in fear, sometimes in love. Through pace and tone, subtlety and suggestion, Hope draws small moments in the characters' daily lives, making their ordinariness and their choices painfully human. Beautiful music graces the chapter breaks. S.J.H. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine [Published: MAY 2014]