In the beginning of Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome, the narrator is trying to piece a story together. What impact does this have on the story?

"I had the story, bit by bit, from various people, and, as
generally happens in such cases, each time it was a different story". This is the
beginning of the "Author's Introductory Note" to Ethan Frome, which
constitutes the narrative frame of the novel. The passage clearly
establishes the narrator as an individual who is neither part nor a witness of the
events narrated in the novel. Thus the narrator must rely on other people's accounts or
offer an interpretation of them to tell the story of Ethan Frome. Significantly the
introductory note ends with the narrator invited to Frome's house one night, a meeting
during which he "began to put together this vision of [Frome's] story". The narrative
that follows, therefore, cannot be defined as reliable as it is the narrator's own
personal interpretation and "vision" of what has happened. The story takes on a more
open and ambiguous nature, where the only events that we can take as the truth are those
contained in the narrative frame.