If I were gay, I’d be gay for Stephin Merritt.

The Magnetic Fields auteur on his annual trawl through the grinding horror that is Ethan Frome:

“I used to read it every year on my birthday,” he says. “It’s 99 pages long. Perfect for birthday reading.”

Ethan Frome. On his birthday. Every year.

“As setting, it can’t be beat,” he continues. “It expresses everything about how horrible New England is.”

I attempt to protest, because too much here is truly not enough. For the moral of Ethan Frome instructs that if you yearn for more, you will end up crippled (quite literally, if you own a sleigh) for the rest of your life.

“Yeah,” Merritt says, near-giddy with misanthropic glee. “For the rest of your life.”