The Receptionist

In 1957, nineteen-year-old Janet Groth - beautiful, Midwestern, fresh out of college and newly arrived in New York City - landed a job at The New Yorker. She never expected to stay long at the reception desk, but there she would remain for the next two decades. Whether her dreams of becoming a writer were deferred because of her own insecurities or the era's treatment of women, there were compensations: Groth had the best seat in the house to watch and register the comings and goings, marriages and divorces, scandalous affairs, failures, triumphs, and tragedies of the inhabitants of those hallowed halls - and to form friendships with some of our most brilliant and often eccentric writers. The Receptionist is an enchanting tale of a woman in search of herself.