One of my most memorable college courses was a seminar on the works of Edith Wharton. It was an evening class, held at my professor’s house, where we discussed Wharton’s work while sipping hot chocolate and playing with her geriatric border collie. Largely as a result of that course, I’ve read almost all of Wharton’s novels, but I confess I’ve never read ETHAN FROME, probably the work of hers that is most often assigned to high school students.

Nevertheless, as a longtime Wharton enthusiast and an eager fan of middle-grade and YA author Ali Benjamin, I was intrigued to see what the latter would do with ETHAN FROME in her adult debut, THE SMASH-UP, inspired by Wharton’s work and updated for the #MeToo era.

"Beyond being a fascinating example of adaptation and an effective character study, THE SMASH-UP offers up so much material for potential discussion."

Like Wharton’s original, THE SMASH-UP opens with a framing story. An unnamed narrator is making his or her way to Starkfield, Massachusetts, and offering roadside assistance and a ride to a haggard, haunted Ethan Frome. At Ethan’s empty house, the narrator sees a seemingly younger Ethan with his wife and daughter, begging the question of what happened to this apparently happy family.

The narrator then slips back in time just a few months, and to Ethan’s life with his family on the outskirts of Starkfield. Starkfield, in the Berkshire Mountains, is a more working-class town than its more picturesque neighboring villages, destinations for tourists and ex-New Yorkers in search of a simpler life. Ethan and his wife, Zenobia (Zo), are among those former New Yorkers, having left for the Berkshires in the wake of 9/11. Before that, Ethan was a partner in an early guerilla marketing firm, Bränd, and Zo was a documentary filmmaker. Since their move, neither one has found quite the same measure of professional success.

Their personal finances are especially strained by the progressive private school where they’ve enrolled their 11-year-old daughter, Alex, whose behavioral and mental health issues proved too much for the public school system. As the novel opens, it’s two years since the Trump election, and Zo has grown increasingly involved in the resistance movement, culminating in the Supreme Court hearings for nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

Ethan also has learned that his former partner at Bränd has been swept up in #MeToo allegations that could jeopardize Ethan’s residual earnings from his former company. He feels increasingly alienated from Zo, feelings exacerbated by his flirtatious relationship with their houseguest and part-time babysitter, Maddy, an enterprising member of Gen Z who seems unfazed by the political turmoil that has swept up everyone else in Ethan’s life.

When Zo is called away and Ethan and Maddy have an unexpected night together, things quickly go off the rails. Still, even those who have read ETHAN FROME will find some surprises in Benjamin’s version of the tale. Beyond being a fascinating example of adaptation and an effective character study, THE SMASH-UP offers up so much material for potential discussion. Gender politics, the gig economy, personal and professional responsibility, and the intersections between class, politics and violence --- all are touched on in this thoughtful and suspenseful novel.

Whether or not it will lead anyone to read or reread Wharton’s original, THE SMASH-UP is in vivid and vibrant conversation with both the source material and our own times.