BOOK REVIEW: Big Swiss

Greta lives with her friend Sabine in an ancient Dutch farmhouse in Hudson, New York. The house, built in 1737, is unrenovated, uninsulated, and full of bees. Greta spends her days transcribing therapy sessions for a sex coach who calls himself Om. She becomes infatuated with his newest client, a repressed married woman she affectionately refers to as Big Swiss, since she’s tall, stoic, and originally from Switzerland. Greta is fascinated by Big Swiss’s refreshing attitude toward trauma. They both have dark histories, but Big Swiss chooses to remain unattached to her suffering while Greta continues to be tortured by her past.

One day, Greta recognizes Big Swiss’s voice in town and contrives a meeting. They quickly become enmeshed. Although Big Swiss is unaware of Greta’s true identity, Greta has never been more herself with anyone. Her attraction to Big Swiss overrides her guilt, and she’ll do anything to sustain the relationship…

Spoiler Free:

After breaking off her engagement to her fiancé, Stacy, and leaving her pharmacy job Greta moves in with her longtime friend, Sabine. Sabine rents of the former living room of a 1737 rundown Dutch Farmhouse. Inside windows are broken, a rooster walks all over, and a large hive of bees sticks beside the fireplace causing hundreds of bees to hum through the thin walls. Greta spends her days transcribing for the town’s sex therapist, Om. But when a client catches her ear, great finds herself infatuated with who FEM is and her dark past. Big Swiss becomes her nickname for she’s tall, Swiss, and cold. Described as ordering food the same way she would an execution.

When Greta runs into Big Swiss they contrive a meeting at the bar. And as time passes both Big Swiss and Greta find themselves more comfortable with each other than with anyone else. But Greta hides behind the disguise of Rebekah, leaving Big Swiss in the dark of who she really is, and what she listens to every time Om sends a tape over.

This literary fiction piece is thick with character development and rich in symbolism. If you’re not wanting a book that requires some thought to figure out what the true meaning behind the words are, I would say this isn’t the book for you at the moment. This book is wonderfully beautiful but can easily be misinterpreted by the lack of effort by the reader. I only think it’s smart to evaluate what you want from a book before picking this one up. If you want an easy, thoughtless book, this may not be for you. But if you’re ready to take the dive I think you’ll absolutely love it, as I did.

Spoilers Full:

Okay, let’s get into this on.

I have a lot to say on this one.

I may be fired up from reading some GoodReads reviews I don’t agree with so…

Proceed with caution.

Read this yourself and come back.

Are you ready?

Let’s get it.

                  I’m not sure I believe in knowing a book before cracking open the pages. I’d like to say I do. Say that I research what I read before I actual do, but I think sometimes a book can catch your attention for any reason. For the cover, the quick synopsis on the back, or even being a fan of the author. I do believe, however, in giving books a chance. I rarely, if ever, DNF a piece and if I finish it and still don’t understand I take the time to read reviews, interviews with the author, or other articles written about it. There are simply some books out there that take that extra effort, that require some extra thought and effort to be put into its pages, not because it isn’t good, but because the author has created a multi-layered piece. BIG SWISS is one of these books. And when I went to GoodReads to see what other people picked up or thought about it, I was… surprised? Shocked? There were so many reviews of people who “simply didn’t get it”. “DNF’ed at 4%”. “And even said that there was no substance to this book. And sure, from the surface level there isn’t. A forty-year-old woman living in a decrepit house, with an old coo-coo woman, a bee hive in the living room, as a transcriber for a sex therapist, becomes infatuated with a stiff, Swiss woman who has gone through a horrible trauma but is adamant that it shouldn’t affect her, they get together, the sex scenes aren’t even sex scenes, everything is weird, and uncomfortable and seems just odd. But that’s not only what. The book is about. The woman who is a transcriber for a sex therapist carries this trauma from giving her mother permission to kill herself when she was a child without knowing the repercussion that it would cause. Which has led her into a life that can’t commit to man, seems bothered by her ex-boss killing himself, find peace in a house that has bees and most of all hides behind a screen to free intimately connected to other humans. It’s not about how weird this woman Greta is, it’s her behaviors due to trauma. It’s not the relationship between Big Swiss and Greta that’s important it’s why they get together. Why they find safety and comfort with one another. How their traumas feed into these unhealthy behaviors. Big Swiss is a character that chooses to move on from her trauma by addressing it, understanding it more. Whereas Greta doesn’t she chooses to live in a life of deception. In a life that is just as it is always. It’s why at the end of the book when Luke is fighting for his life in the hospital Big Swiss says to Greta that she would’ve just died, because she has no will to live in her. She’s already given up. It’s why the ending seems so odd, with Greta in the pastures with the mini donkeys having them nibble on her ankles as she laughs aloud, but it’s the clear deception that see chooses in that moment. She doesn’t choose to go help, go see Big Swiss, go see OM, she chooses to sit in a field with donkeys.

                  And that’s just a small part of it. But it’s why when I see reviews like I did before I get so frustrated. Not liking a book is one thing. Art is subjective. But not giving a piece a chance or taking the effort to get to know it is crazy to me. And it’s so frustrating that today the community of readers expect books to make sense right away and expect everything to be black and white, written on the page to read and know. It’s one thing if the characters aren’t developed, if the writing is bad, the plot doesn’t have a smooth progression, but BIG SWISS has all of that and more. Jen Beagin’s writing is so good, I’m jealous. Her ability to write sentences that actually get a belly chuckle out of me is only fueled by talent and hard work.

                  Was this my favorite book I’ve ever read? No. If it was, I would’ve given it 5 stars. But it was innovative, different, full of symbolism, and funny. In a world where everyone is copying each other, pieces are being remade, or formulas are followed I thoroughly enjoyed reading a book where I had absolutely no idea where it was going. BIG SWISS is innovative, creative, funny, cringe-worthy, hectic, and realistic. All things I love to read. I only wish people would actually meet the book and author halfway instead of expecting the author to do all the work, because at the end of the day books are art and art is meant to be interpreted.

Jen Beagin

JEN BEAGIN holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of California, Irvine, and is a recipient of a Whiting Award in fiction. Her first novel Pretend I’m Dead was shortlisted for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize and Vacuum in the Dark was shortlisted for the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for comic fiction. She is also the author of Big Swiss. She lives in Hudson, New York.

ISBN-13:  978-1982153083

Check out my GoodReads Review!