The receptionist : an education at the New Yorker Cover Image

The receptionist : an education at the New Yorker / Janet Groth.

Groth, Janet, 1936- (Author).

Summary:

Thanks to a successful interview with a painfully shy E. B. White, a beautiful nineteen-year-old hazel-eyed Midwesterner landed a job as receptionist at The New Yorker. There she stayed for two decades, becoming the general office factotum—watching and registering the comings and goings, marriages and divorces, scandalous affairs, failures, triumphs, and tragedies of the eccentric inhabitants of the eighteenth floor. In addition to taking their messages, Groth watered their plants, walked their dogs, boarded their cats, and sat their children (and houses) when they traveled. And although she dreamed of becoming a writer herself, she never advanced at the magazine.

Record details

ISBN: 9781616201319
ISBN: 1616201312
Physical Description: viii, 229 pages ; 22 cm
Edition: 1st edition
Publisher: Chapel Hill, N.C. : Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2012.

Content descriptions

Formatted Contents Note:

Introduction, or, Jack spills the beans -- Homage to Mr. Berryman -- On writing, not writing, and lunching with Joe -- Remembering Muriel -- Rough passage through the New Yorker Art Department -- Party girl -- Back on reception -- Fritz -- Intermezzo -- Fritz, the denouement -- A world awry -- A new roommate -- Greece : the journey out -- Greece : the journey in -- Changing -- A Renaissance man -- Mr. Right at last -- What the receptionist received.