Cover of Buttered Side Down
    Fiction

    Buttered Side Down

    by LovelyMay
    Buttered Side Down by Edna Ferber is a captivating collection of short stories that humorously and poignantly explore the unpredictable twists of ordinary lives and human resilience.

    In “The Kitchen Side of the Door,” the grandeur of New Year’s Eve in New York con­trasts sharply with the grit­ty real­i­ty behind the scenes in the kitchen of the Newest Hotel. Amidst the chaot­ic cel­e­bra­tions marked by debauch­ery and excess among the rich and glam­orous, Miss Gussie Fink, the kitchen’s check­er, stands as a bea­con of order and dili­gence. Despite the sur­round­ing deca­dence, includ­ing a Russ­ian Grand Duke look-alike enjoy­ing cham­pagne from a lady’s slip­per, and oth­er guests indulging in the hotel’s extrav­a­gant offer­ings, Miss Fink remains focused on her duty. Her job entails ver­i­fy­ing the con­tent of the wait­ers’ trays, ensur­ing every­thing served is account­ed for.

    Amid this night of rev­el­ry, the divide between pub­lic opu­lence and pri­vate sor­row is stark­ly evi­dent. Miss Fink, once engaged in a flir­ta­tion with Heiny, now a wait­er turned Hen­ri, expe­ri­ences the pang of their end­ed rela­tion­ship. Hen­ri’s new sta­tus as a wait­er has ele­vat­ed him from the kitchen to the din­ing room, strain­ing their romance. The scorn and envy of their cowork­ers add to Miss Fink’s woes.

    The sto­ry reveals the harsh real­i­ties and human dra­mas unfold­ing away from the guests’ view. In the kitchen, Miss Fink’s integri­ty and no-non­sense atti­tude keep the staff in check, much to the cha­grin of some, like Tony the Crook, a wait­er known for his devi­ous ways.

    As mid­night strikes and cel­e­bra­tions peak, Miss Fink’s world col­lides with the out­side glam­our when she is asked to assist in the hotel’s bar. There, she encoun­ters tales of Hen­ri’s ser­vice to a lav­ish par­ty indulging in expen­sive cham­pagne, mark­ing his com­plete trans­for­ma­tion and dis­tanc­ing from her world.

    How­ev­er, the night takes a sober­ing turn when a drunk­en woman from Hen­ri’s table col­laps­es, reveal­ing the ugly after­math of the night’s excess. In this moment, the facade of Hen­ri’s new life cracks, allow­ing him to see the gen­uine, unblem­ished kind­ness and sim­plic­i­ty in Miss Fink, con­trast­ing sharply with the taint­ed glam­our he has been serv­ing. This inci­dent realigns their rela­tion­ship, as they find solace in their shared escape to the nor­mal­cy and sim­plic­i­ty of a hum­ble meal at Joey’s, find­ing com­fort in each oth­er’s com­pa­ny away from the pre­tense of their New Year’s Eve roles.

    This chap­ter high­lights the con­trasts between appear­ance and real­i­ty, the super­fi­cial ver­sus the mean­ing­ful, and ulti­mate­ly, the return to gen­uine con­nec­tions and val­ues amidst the super­fi­cial­i­ty of soci­etal cel­e­bra­tions.

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