Stephin Merritt, musical genius and renowned slow-talker, reads Ethan Frome every year on his birthday, which festively falls in the middle of bleak January. Merritt recently described the book to SFWeekly as “perfect for birthday reading,” and goes on to say that it “expresses everything about how horrible New England is.”

Back when I scheduled the winter-ending Frome-In at the Firehouse, I had no idea that it was going to be in the forties today, or that daylight savings was happening like a whole damn month early this year. Also, this is my second post in two days that I think reads something like: “Me. Me me me. Me me, me me me! Me me me me me.”

HOWEVER.

Tonight, at Firehouse 13, a marathon reading of Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome, presented by Not About The Buildings. Over a dozen readers confirmed so far, some of whom love the book, some of whom hate it, and some of whom have never read it before.

Rereading the book a few days ago, I was surprised at how very “Yellow Wallpaper” the book is, and how all the things I remembered from reading it in high school seem different now. (The snow! The pickles! The malevolant hypochondriac wife!)

Also, the book is short, which means the marathon will (probably) be over with plenty of time for you to get to your favorite dance party.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, March 13th, 2008 at 9:24 am and is filed under Books, Get Out of the House. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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