Tag: the 1950s

The Operator

~ Wendy-Marie ~ Leave a comment

Life in a small town is like no other. Guaranteed someone knows your business, even the secrets you do not know. It doesn’t matter you live in a tiny English village straight off a biscuit tin, a New England mill town, a seaside hamlet or a Midwest town. And I am not immune to secrets and revelations so when I heard about a 2020 novel called The Operator? I was interested enough to take a screenshot and see if the local library carried it.

According to the author bio on the back flap of The Operator, this is Gretchen Berg’s debut novel. Seriously? Because unlike another debut novel I took a chance on earlier this spring I had absolutely no problem diving into tiny 1950s Wooster, Ohio even with the spouse braying at the antics of whatever Minecraft Let’s Play video he was watching. The first page sucks you in, you are right there with Vivian, wearing old winter boots on her way to work.

A 1950s woman…working? Weren’t all women housewives being supported by their husbands. Not exactly. Vivian’s work at the telephone company makes life nicer, paying for the things her husband’s salary cannot quite cover. And Vivian likes her work, she loves knowing the ins and outs of what is happening in her town and being a telephone operator is a great match. Until Vivian learns a secret about herself.

Giving away the secret takes away the fun of reading The Operator but let’s say Vivian doesn’t die, it’s a whopper with nesting boxes of whoppers. And Vivian is very relatable. She doesn’t curl up in a ball and give in even if some of her decisions are made from social pressure. She keeps on going and a bit at the end has me tearing up because that part of journey touches on something in my own mother’s life. Go Vivian go!

The Operator is a fine book club recommendation (I have book clubs on the brain at the moment having just joining a site wide book club at work) and between you, me and the World Wide Internet if the trade paperback edition has one of those book club suggested discussion questions I need to see “When did you realize CHARACTER NAME was THING I DIDN’T FIGURE OUT BECAUSE I AM THAT DIM” because I can’t be the only one this dim. Also The Operator would make nice Paramount Plus show because Vivian and her pluck remind me of Ginnifer Goodwin in Why Women Kill. Get cracking out that Paramount Plus.

I can give The Operator a firm Essie Hi Maintenance (Revlon’s Fire and Ice looks dreadful on me) thumbs up. Grab it from your book source, find a comfortable spot (I recommend not on the other side of the couch from your spouse) and spend a few hours with Vivian Dalton and the secrets of Wooster, Ohio.

Inside Peyton Place

~ Wendy-Marie ~ Leave a comment

Sometimes when you read a book, you want to fire up the old Literary Time Machine (Blacklight: “Lemme guess, you want to make out with H.P. Lovecraft” Me: <death glare> “No…”) I want to go back to the 1956 and smack away every glass of Canadian Club and 7 UP that Grace Metalious even gave the slightest longing look at. And I also want to frog-march her directly to a competent agent and financial manager and not let her sneak back to The Plaza until every last paper was signed. I wonder if Emily Toth ever had the same crazy thoughts while she was working on Inside Peyton Place: The Life of Grace Metalious. Because let me tell you, out of the Shirley Jackson/Grace Metalious/Jacqueline Susann trio? Grace was the clear winner of the shouldn’t be coveted Most Bleeped Up Her Life title. And we’re talking about some stiff competition because Shirley Jackson and Jacqueline Susann? Lots of Bad Life Choice Theater.

Blacklight: “Who the heck is Grace Metalious again?”

In case you haven’t visited the Grace Metalious page or are my beloved Minecraft addicted spouse Blacklight, Grace Metalious is an author who wrote the mega best seller Peyton Place about the secrets of a small New England. This novel spawned an Oscar nominated movie, several television shows and sequels. If you’re under 40 years old? Your parents or grandparents read Peyton Place in secret, clucking over all the s-e-x. Unless of course you’re my parents. Neither of them read the darn book, even though my mother remembers watching the 1964-1969 prime-time soap opera and “not liking that Allison girl at all”.

Now of course as a wee lass reading Peyton Place, Return to Peyton Place, The Tight White Collar and No Adam in Eden, I had no idea that the lady behind these crumbling paperbacks I found at tag sales died young and broke. Or that we shared a French-Canadian heritage. Grace Metalious just seemed so young and innocent and sad in the iconic “Pandora in Blue Jeans” picture. Nothing like the glamorous leopard clad Jackie Collins whose books I was devouring as fast as Her Collins could produce them. Then one day, after I had a license and realized my library card could be used at any public library in the state, I found Emily Toth’s Inside Peyton Place: The Life of Grace Metalious. And boy oh boy was my image of Grace Metalious shattered.

Grace Metalious’ rise from child of blue collar workers in a New Hampshire mill town to marrying young to living a shack of a rented house  with a dry well to writing the bestseller Peyton Place was like something out of a Hollywood movie. One with Joan Crawford in Adrian gowns at the end. And what happened after the fame and fortune from Peyton Place? Something John Waters and his stable of stars would film with Divine in a sloppy housecoat with booze stains down the front as Grace. How do you just sign over all the film rights to a movie studio without protecting yourself? Or blaze through all your royalties and that sweet $250,000 studio check in less than eight years?

Would you still want to read Peyton Place, Return to Peyton Place, The Tight White Collar and No Adam in Eden after encountering Inside Peyton Place: The Life of Grace Metalious? YES! It’s worth the trouble of tracking them down. Inside Peyton Place: The Life of Grace Metalious adds annotations to the experience. Who knew Grace could have avoid certain legal troubles if she just changed certain character names? Or just how much of her own life was being woven into her books. The quick end coming out of nowhere in No Adam in Eden is easier to understand once you know the circumstances in which the book was written. And after reading Grace’s notes for a third Peyton Place novel, you wonder what could have been if Grace Metalious was able to stay away from the bottle long enough to plop her butt in that lovely office in her dream house and write. A lesser writer than Emily Toth would have sneered at the wreck of Grace Metalious’ life  with all it’s scandals but Emily Toth has the skill make you care as deeply about her subject as she did.