The novel is framed by the literary device of an extended flashback. The prologue opens with an unnamed male narrator spending a winter in Starkfield, a fictional town in New England, while in the area on business. He spots a limping, quiet man around the village, who is somehow compelling in his demeanor and carriage. Curious, the narrator sets out to learn about him, learning the man's name as Ethan Frome. He learns that Frome's limp arose from having been injured in a "smash-up" twenty-four years before, but further details are not forthcoming.