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Buttered Side Down: Stories

Edna Ferber

Book Overview: 

"And so," the story writers used to say, "they lived happily ever after."

Um-m-m—maybe. After the glamour had worn off, and the glass slippers were worn out, did the Prince never find Cinderella's manner redolent of the kitchen hearth; and was it never necessary that he remind her to be more careful of her finger-nails and grammar? After Puss in Boots had won wealth and a wife for his young master did not that gentleman often fume with chagrin because the neighbors, perhaps, refused to call on the lady of the former poor miller's son?

It is a great risk to take with one's book-children. These stories make no such promises. They stop just short of the phrase of the old story writers, and end truthfully, thus: And so they lived. E. F.

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Book Excerpt: 
. . .comic papers have long insisted that the country boy, on his first visit to the city, is known by his greased boots and his high-water pants. Don't you believe them. The small-town boy is as fastidious about the height of his heels and the stripe of his shift and the roll of his hat-brim as are his city brothers. He peruses the slangily worded ads of the "classy clothes" tailors, and when scarlet cravats are worn the small-town boy is not more than two weeks late in acquiring one that glows like a headlight.

Louie found a rooming-house, shoved his suitcase under the bed, changed his collar, washed his hands in the gritty water of the wash bowl, and started out to look for a job.

Louie was twenty-one. For the last four years he had been employed in the best shoe store at home, and he knew shoe leather from the factory to the ash barrel. It was almost a religion with him.

Curiosity, which plays leads in so many life dramas, led Lo. . . Read More

Community Reviews

Edna Ferber is great... super entertaining. I can't believe I didn't know about her before and I will be seeking out more of her work. Isn't that the best possible reaction after reading a book? She has a lot of wit which is probably one of my favorite attributes for a writer, and I think it's unfor

The stories take place in the early 1900's. Most of them deal with young people going to the big cities, or in one case to the navy, and the struggles they face. They deal with home sickness, and trying to find their way in the new environment.

More like 4 1/2.

Why Ferber isn't taught in schools is beyond me. This is easily as good as anything Fitzgerald wrote but exposes so many small details about life from a woman's point of view...it's just a treasure.

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