Big Swiss

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Big Swiss

By: Jen Beagin

Narrated by: Carlotta Brentan, Joy Osmanski, Matt Pittenger, Rebecca Lowman, Stephen Graybill

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** SOON TO BE A MAJOR HBO SERIES STARRING JODIE COMER **

'Made me laugh and think too much (the right amount?) about sex and death and honesty.' MONICA HEISEY
'Utterly addictive. . . I laughed so hard it ached.' GILLIAN ANDERSON
'Juicy, salacious and compelling. Trauma shouldn't be this fun.' SARA PASCOE

Greta liked knowing people's secrets. That wasn't a problem. Until she met Big Swiss.

Big Swiss. That's Greta's nickname for her - she is tall, and she is from Switzerland. Greta can see her now: dressed top to toe in white, that adorable gap between her two front teeth, her penetrating blue eyes. She's a head-turner: including the heads of infants and dogs.

Well that's how Greta imagines seeing her; they haven't actually ever met in person. Nor has Greta actually ever been to Switzerland.

Greta and Big Swiss are not in the same room, or even the same building. Greta is miles away, sitting at a desk in her own house, wearing only headphones, fingerless gloves, a kimono, and legwarmers, transcribing this disembodied voice.

What Greta doesn't know is that she's about to bump into Big Swiss in the local dog park. A new - and not entirely honest - relationship is going to be born.

A relationship that will transform both of their lives. . .©2023 Jen Beagin (P)2023 Faber & Faber

Jen BeaginCarlotta BrentanJoy OsmanskiMatt PittengerRebecca LowmanStephen GraybillFaber & Faber

Fiction

Genre Fiction

Literary Fiction

Funny

Mind-bending

Scary

Thought-Provoking

Witty

Heartfelt

Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Funny Mind-bending Scary Thought-Provoking Witty Heartfelt

Critic reviews

"Big Swiss is a dark party; a hilarious romp through new age pop psychology, romantic obsession, sapphic acrobatics, dogs, and the desire to end it all... I delighted in this cynical, sexy, hopeless, hopeful, Hudson Valley jubilee. Come for the bees, stay for the donkeys!" (Melissa Broder)

"This book is such a tonic, it should be available on prescription. All hail the genius of Jen Beagin." (The Bookseller, 'Book of the Month')

"Juicy, salacious and compelling. Trauma shouldn't be this fun." (Sara Pascoe)

Most relevant

I feel like this is the most ‘Marmite’ book I’ve read and listened to in a good long while. You’re either going to like/love it (delete as appropriate) or loathe it, and there’s not going to be much in between.

There is no denying Jen Beagin’s talent as a darkly comedic, absurdist writer. Her prose is clever, cutting, and observant. The detail, at times, is not for the faint-hearted, and its super fastidiousness can teeter on the edge of vulgarity. It should come with a public health warning that it may offend those of a more delicate imposition.

With that being said, I am not all that delicate or easily offended, and I thoroughly enjoyed this mad, uninhibited romp into the life of the eccentric and deeply damaged 40-something Greta.

Greta lives with her hippy friend Sabine in a ramshackle farmhouse full of honeybees in New York. A former pharm tech, she works as a transcriber for a New Age sex therapist called Om. Greta quickly becomes obsessed with one of Om’s new clients (Flavia), a 28-year-old Swiss gynaecologist, who admits she has never had an orgasm in her life.

Greta gives Flavia the moniker ‘Big Swiss’, and when the two women bump into each other at the local dog park, they embark on a passionate and illicit affair. Of course, Greta knows every intimate detail of Flavia’s life but fails to reveal the truth to her secret lover.

Both women are bound together by intense personal trauma. Flavia was severely physically assaulted by a man, and Greta has repressed memories and unaddressed problems owing to her mother’s suicide when she was just 13.

Their messy relationship, which looks to be ultimately doomed, transforms their lives in a way neither could have imagined. But will their pairing heal their pain and banish their demons? And who is going to be hurt along the way?

I really enjoyed the witty dialogue between Greta and Flavia. It brought a much-needed lighter touch to what are dark and serious subject matters.
Greta’s precarious living conditions in a crumbling, decrepit old house mirror the uncomfortable, unravelling state of her mind. Her selfishness, her pathetic existence, and her intense dependence on her dog Pinon, all gradually make sense as the book nears its end, and we learn the extent of her childhood trauma and the fraught relationship she had with her dead mother.

Despite Greta’s failings and the fact that I wanted to give her a good shake at times, I found myself rooting for her, wanting her to sort her life out and to get to a point where she could grow and have healthy, happy relationships.

On finishing the book, I’ve since learned that Big Swiss is soon to be a major HBO series starring Jodie Comer of Killing Eve fame, who will play Flavia. Given how masterfully Comer plays the chic assassin Villanelle, I can’t think of a better casting for Flavia (aka Big Swiss), and I can’t wait to see how she portrays her, particularly her quirky and biting humour.

Big Swiss is a wild ride of a book with dark satire at its heart, and the core theme of love and relationships pockmarked with obsession, infidelity, jealousy, fear and lies. The genius of Beagin’s farcical comedy is her acknowledgement of the absurdity of modern-day living and the world of therapy.

It’s a solid 3.5 stars from me, almost a 4, but I felt the ending or lack of an ending, let it down for me right at the final fence.

My favourite Big Swiss quotes:

“Yes, people age horribly. They suffer strokes. Their bodies and brains fall apart. But the male ego? Firmly intact until the bitter end.”
“Kissing Big Swiss’s teeth was jarring and humiliating, like kissing a bathroom sink. But maybe that was too unkind. It was like kissing a baptismal font full of holy water.”
“When I pick out pastries at the bakery, it sounds like I’m ordering someone’s execution.”
“If everything can be explained by your trauma, then nothing is really your fault, right? You always have this convenient out. Your mother killed herself, and so that gives you permission to do whatever you want?”
“All I’m saying is that trauma doesn’t get you a lifelong get-out-of-jail-free card. It also doesn’t necessarily confer wisdom, or the right to pontificate”
“My triggers are covered in wet sand,” she’d said, “because my head is a giant cement mixer.”