Thank you to Netgalley for my free copy in exchange for my honest review.

When I read the blurb of the Operator, it sounded compelling and right up my street. However, it fell so flat! I didn’t like the characters, the plot became monotonous and it just didn’t keep me engaged. Something was missing for me unfortunately.
It’s not very often I don’t finish a book but I had to about 2/3 of the way in as life is too short!

In December 1952, Vivian Dalton is 38 years old, mum of Charlotte (15) and wife to Edward, and a switchboard operator at Ohio Bell in Wooster, Ohio. Vivian is also rather nosy and after connecting callers with their requested numbers, she often stays on the line to have a listen for any good gossip! Most of it is usually mundane but Vivian takes delight in knowing these secrets facts about everyone.

Late one night, she gets more than she bargained for when she hears four-flusher (someone who makes false or pretentious claims) Betty Miller and another woman swapping some scandalous gossip about Vivian’s family! Getting a taste of her medicine, Vivian is horrified and paranoid that people are talking about her and feels uncomfortable around everyone in the small town where she lives. She vows to uncover the whole truth about the saga and find out who the caller was.

We also learn about a bank robbery, which keeps the locals talking as the couple who carried out the crime, Gilbert Ogden and Flora Parker, are still at large. Ogden was a teller at Wayne Building and Loan and he embezzled $250,000 and absconded with the bank director’s secretary and married woman, Flora Parker. Betty’s father, J. Ellis Reed, is the mayor of Wooster and also the owner of the bank and he had promised to reimburse people in the town who’d lost money with his own cash.

The story is set in 1952–53 and told in flashbacks to various points in Vivian’s life (1925, 1931 and 1936) when she is 10, 16 and 21 respectively. Her maiden name was McGinty and she has four siblings: Henry, Vera, Violet and Will. She first joined Ohio Bell at aged 16, before moving out to upstate New York shortly after marrying her husband, Edward, in June 1937, after he took up a job at The Institution for Male Defective Delinquents. They returned to Wooster a few years later, with a young Charlotte, after Edward quit his job at the prison.

Interspersed in the story are dictionary definitions, newspaper articles and tasty-sound recipes, which add to the familiarity and homeliness. Vivian’s daughter, Charlotte, is rather intelligent and mocks her mother for not knowing what words mean and how to spell them correctly. Vivian is very emotional and screams into a pillow and smokes when she’s angry and uses baking to calm herself down.

The Operator was delightfully written and cleverly woven and I enjoyed getting to know all the characters and learning their secrets and hearing more about some of the events that had shocked the town over the years. Some surprising revelations are revealed throughout the book and I certainly hadn’t imagined half of the scandals in this small town!

There were lots of twists and turns and various storylines and I especially enjoyed getting to know the women, who all seemed rather two faced and petty and took great delight in each other’s failures and loss of face! It was interesting to look back at their pasts and see how everything had come about in the story.

Overall, this was a lovely read and an intriguing, authentic look at 1950s small town America. There was plenty to keep my attention and I loved the way nearly all the characters had hidden, juicy secrets! Not my usual read but it was a great insight into how life was in the time period and it was fascinating to learn that the book was loosely based on the author’s switchboard operator grandmother and family history details from her little brown notebook!

Thanks to Headline and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Stunningly original and compelling - I loved every page. Well, there are certain perils to eavesdropping, most notably that you may hear something you don't really want to. If we are honest, however, who could resist the temptation to hear the deepest, darkest secrets of your neighbours and friends? Not many, I would presume, even if there remained the ever present possibility of hearing something you may wish you hadn't. Gossip is the theme du jour of Gretchen Berg's triumphant tour de force of a novel about the propensity of the human condition to concern oneself with the personal or private affairs of others. It is not merited, but it is irresistible. This is certainly the case for Vivian Dalton, a switchboard operator in Wooster, Ohio. Dalton, vis-à-vis her creator, Gretchen Berg, recounts some deliciously gossipy vignettes about the residents of the Wooster. Secrets are uncovered, lies are told, with we, the readers, become privileged voyeurs into the richly-drawn worlds of the cast of characters who make up 'The Operator'. Gossip can only be relished fully, from a superior point of morality, when it does not concern us. Then.... well, its becomes something more personal, less frivolous, and less gossipy. This is the crux of the story, the point in the narrative when Vivian Dalton learns something, from her eavesdropping, that very much does concern her. With considerable verve and style, Berg writes a stunning exploration of 1950s America in microcosm. Lifting the lid on the true lives of the men and women behind the glossy adverts of contemporary culture that purports an idealised vision of gender, as distinct relations between men and women, Berg's novel is a glorious piece literature, even a devilishly wicked example of literary counter-culture. Sublimely entertaining and thoughtful, this book is a must-read for 2020.

I finished this book in an unstoppable rush and it was every bit as glorious, gossipy, delicious and perfect as I’d hoped. Absolute heaven. Loved it!