The Operator: A Novel

A nosy switchboard operator overhears gossip about her family, curious and fearful about it being true, in this humorous novel about 1950s Midwest America.

Nobody knows the people of Wooster, Ohio, better than switchboard operator Vivian Dalton, and she’d be the first to tell you that. Vivian and the other women who work at Bell on East Liberty Street connect lines and lives. They aren’t supposed to listen in on conversations, but they do, and they all have opinions on what they hear—especially Vivian. She knows that Mrs. Butler’s ungrateful daughter, Maxine, still hasn’t thanked her mother for the quilt she made, and that Ginny Frazier turned down yet another invitation to go to the A&W with Clyde Walsh.

Then, one cold December night, Vivian listens in on a call between that snob Betty Miller and someone whose voice she can’t quite place and hears something shocking. Betty’s mystery friend has news that, if true, will shatter Vivian’s tidy life, humiliating her and making her the laughingstock of the town. Unwilling to take this lying down, she’s going to get to the bottom of that rumor. Vivian wants the truth, no matter how painful it may be.

But in a small town like Wooster, one secret usually leads to another . . .

Includes Recipes!

“With great humor and insight, The Operator delivers a vivid look inside the heads and hearts of a group of housewives and pokes at the absurdities of 1950s America, a simpler time that was far from simple. Think The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel in the suburbs with delicious turns of jealousy, infidelity, bigotry, and embezzlement thrown in for good measure. Irresistible!” —New York Times–bestselling author Kathryn Stockett

© 2024 William Morrow (Ebook): 9780062917201

Release date

Ebook: 27 February 2024