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The Operator by Gretchen Berg

As Vivian Dalton’s grandma always said: Be careful what you wish for.

It’s 1952 and Vivian works for Bell Telephone as an operator. This is before dial telephones were widely available. And in Wooster, Ohio if you want to make a phone call you have to get connected by an operator like Vivian.

Vivian prides herself on knowing people. One of the reasons she knows so much is because she, like many of the operators, doesn’t hang up after they connect their calls. They listen in hoping to get some good gossip. When Vivian listens in hoping to get some new tidbits about the town’s wealthy mean girl she learns something about her own family that will turn her world upside down.

I’ll admit I had a little difficulty liking Vivian at first but by the end of the book I really liked her. She only has an eighth grade education because she had to go to work during the Depression to help her family and her lack of familiarity with vocabulary at first gets her defensive, and making some wrong (and funny) word choices, but then she decides she’s going to try to learn more. She’s a smart and determined lady, as we learn while she tries to puzzle out the mystery at the center of her family. I enjoyed watching her grow and change throughout the novel.

It was so nice to read about a different time. I won’t say simpler, because it wasn’t, it was just so different. It was fun reading about all the period details, especially the meals. I’m so glad Jell-O mold cuisine has been firmly left in the past!