Stories from the halls of The New Yorker

Groth was not a writer,editor or fact-checker at The New Yorker. For 21 years,from 1957 to 1978,she was the 18th-floor receptionist.

Despite coming to New York fresh from the University of Minnesota to be a writer herself,Groth never published a word in The New Yorker. She remained glued to the receptionist’s chair,where she had “a bird’s-eye view of everything and a hot plate,which I brought,” she said.

Groth’s curious,stillborn career at the magazine,and the reasons behind it,are the subject of her new memoir,The Receptionist: An Education at The New Yorker.

Sitting in her tidy studio apartment in New York,Groth said she was deeply insecure in those years,she said,because she grew up far from the publishing world in Iowa and Minnesota,the daughter of an alcoholic father.

Groth embraced her role as receptionist and the perks that came with it,like the opportunity to interact with some of the most gifted writers of the 20th century. She fielded inquiries from J.D.Salinger; helped James Thurber secure office space; gave a lost Woody Allen directions.

The woman who spoke at the National Arts Club hardly resembled the shy,self-doubting one portrayed in The Receptionist. Her insecurity has mellowed into a sly,self-deprecating wit. And,the writer who did not get published in The New Yorker capped off the evening by reading a passage from her memoir.

In the passage,Groth addresses her years at the receptionist desk and grapples with whether The New Yorker somehow mistreated her. But after considering the vacations,flexible work schedule and the many “intangibles” like party invites and a front-row seat to New York literary life,she concluded,“It is not clear to me who was exploiting whom.”