The Operator by Gretchen Berg: book review

The Operator (2020) is set in Wooster, a small town in Ohio, in America in the 1950s.

Vivian Dalton is a switchboard operator with the Bell company, connecting people by telephone. In a small town, everyone knows everybody else’s business, and Vivian knows more than most. She says it’s her intuition, but her teenage daughter Charlotte calls it eavesdropping. Her husband Edward tries not to get involved, but he always recognises his wife’s voice over the phone.

Vivian says she doesn’t always recognize the voice or the phone number that she is connecting them to, but when she hears a conversation that’s not going anywhere, she really wants to offer advice. All the women in the Bell company gossip about the comings and goings in the town.

But the tables are turned when Betty Miller hears some ‘extremely intriguing information about Vivian Dalton’s family.’ Vivian overhears Betty talking to someone whose voice she can’t recognise—and they are talking about her. Fear and anxiety quickly overcome Vivian. The story goes back in time to 1936.

When a group of ladies at afternoon tea hear the shocking news, they wonder ‘how on earth poor, poor Vivian is going to deal with this when it gets out to the rest of Wooster’ … Where does someone in a small town go to escape public scrutiny and scorn?’

This is a comedic view of gossip and jealousy, lies and mistruths, and crimes and misdemeanours. It’s a quick, easy, read-to-the-end family drama and small town mystery. The author even includes some of her own grandmother’s recipes.

MARTINA NICOLLS

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MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of: The Paris Residences of James Joyce (2020), Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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