THE OPERATOR

Narrator Allyson Ryan deftly captures the mix of insight and humor in this first novel about the power of gossip and small-town life in the 1950s. With characterizations that are sharp without being unkind, she introduces us to the inhabitants of Wooster, Ohio, where conventionality dominates the social order on the surface of things. Underneath, of course, people are complicated. Few know that better than the telephone switchboard operators, particularly Vivian Dalton, who habitually listens to the calls she connects. One day, she hears a piece of gossip that will upend her life and her family's position in town. Ryan reads with sympathy and drollness as the people's long-held assumptions shift and the social order becomes a lot less orderly. A.C.S. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine [Published: JANUARY 2020]