Customer Reviews

Buttered Side Down - Short Stories by Edna Ferber

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In the words of the 1912 Book Review Digest, this consists of "A dozen stories of breadwinners, women chiefly, whose bread invariably falls with the buttered side down." There's humor here, and now-fascinating descriptions of the details of everyday life of the time. But all is not sweetness and light. Some of the stories seem to end abruptly, leaving me wondering what the point was. Others end in infuriating ways; there aren't a lot of happy endings here. In fact, the last story is absolutely dark. The theme seems to be, as one of Ferber's characters says, "Most of us are where we are because we belong there, and if we didn't, we wouldn't be." A much different outlook on life than we have now, where there's such an emphasis on improving oneself, and upward mobility.

Despite my seeming complaints about these stories, I will be reading more Edna Ferber because, although infuriating, the characters, descriptions and stories are just plain interesting.

Now to the nitty-gritty. I read the free Kindle version, ASIN B002RKSYNG, that shows a publication date of March 17, 2006. There is an active Table of Contents and the formatting for the most parts seems fine to me. There are a typo or two, but no worse than the current books I've bought so far. I don't see any reason to pay for this one unless the The Works: Edna Ferber gets good reviews; then it might be worth spending the money for convenience sake. (No reviews for that collection yet, as of this writing.)

Thoroughly enjoyed these stories, which left me wanting to read more from Edna Ferber. To think she started writing over 100 years ago, is amazing. For a longer, more detailed story line, one should also read "Fanny Herself." You won't regret committing to reading this book. My only hope is that we get her entire collection on Kindle!