The Receptionist

Judith West gets off on the wrong foot voicing Janet Groth's account of her two decades as a receptionist at THE NEW YORKER, and she never really recovers. West seems to have decided that since the magazine was full of ironic wits like James Thurber and E.B. White, Groth must be a sort of junior Auntie Mame. But she isn't. She met and was befriended by plenty of famous characters, and has names to drop and tales to tell. But her own interesting story, which this is, also has plenty of passages that are clear-eyed and painful as she slowly discovers what has kept a talented and very bright young person stuck at entry level for so long. West reads energetically but is miscast here. B.G. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine