Jen Beagin

The Short of It:

What a fun, darkly humorous book.

The Rest of It:

"Greta lives with her friend Sabine in an ancient Dutch farmhouse in Hudson, New York. The house 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." ~ the publisher

Transcribing sex therapy sessions is already unusual work, but show more everything shifts the moment Greta recognizes a familiar voice in the park. Standing right in front of her is the woman she has only known through transcripts, the one she has privately dubbed Big Swiss. Seeing her in real life is startling. She is tall, poised, and quietly commanding. Greta realizes she knows intimate details about this woman’s life, yet the urge to know more only deepens.

What begins as curiosity turns into something far more consuming. Greta’s fascination with Big Swiss, whose real name is Flavia, grows intense and increasingly risky. Flavia is married, and Greta is painfully aware of that marriage through the therapy sessions she transcribes. Still, there is an undeniable pull between them. That tension is heightened by the shadow hanging over Flavia’s life, as she is being stalked by the person who once nearly killed her.

As their connection develops into something complicated and unconventional, Greta is forced to confront her own past. She carries deep guilt over her mother’s death, a burden she cannot seem to shake. Meanwhile, life in a small town offers little room for secrets. Everyone is entangled in everyone else’s business, especially when a sex therapist sits at the center, quietly collecting stories and asking probing questions that linger long after the sessions end.

Greta’s job pays the bills, but it also puts her in a morally precarious position. When the boundaries of confidentiality begin to blur, she faces a choice that could unravel everything. Even her eccentric, free-spirited roommate struggles to understand what is at stake.

This novel blends dark humor with an exploration of unconventional relationships. It moves through friendship, obsession, desire, and fear while asking difficult questions. What does it mean to give yourself fully to another person? Is it a loss of self, or a way of becoming whole?

Highly recommended.

For more reviews, visit my blog: Book Chatter. show less

Jen Beagin’s Big Swiss is a wild romp through the world of a sex therapist (“Om”) and his transcriptionist, Greta. The book, however, focuses on one of Om’s clients, a woman Greta nicknames “Big Swiss” (for whatever reason; her real name is Flavia). Greta is transfixed by Big Swiss; listening to her sessions with Om, she feels a deep attraction to her, and it’s only a matter of time before the women meet, mostly due to Greta’s orchestrations. They strike up a very intimate show more relationship, but Greta knows that her ruse will eventually surface.

This book is beyond quirky, it is deeply strange, tempered by Beagin’s scathing humor. I was so impressed with this book I immediately purchased her other novel, Pretend I’m Dead. Themes of voyeurism, client-therapist relationships, and making very, very bad decisions swirl about. This book is very freaky, absurd, and fiendishly clever.

Oh, to add to the weirdness of it all, Greta lives in a weird old house with her equally weird friend Sabine, whose kitchen is home to a hive of 50,000 bees. Yeah. Also, if you’re a fan of Ottessa Moshfegh, you will probably love this book. show less

Greta is a transcriber. She listens to recordings of therapy sessions and transcribes them for the therapist. But it is uncomfortable work for two reasons. She is brought face to face with just how messed up the sex lives of the citizens in her town are. And she has developed an overwhelming fascination with one of the therapist’s clients whom she only knows by her voice and her initials. In her fantasies she calls her, “Big Swiss.” But then when she inadvertently meets with the woman show more who has that voice from the taped sessions, she is astounded by her physical beauty (and her tragic history). Events ensue and “torrid” might be a modest description of their relationship. But as Greta notes late on in the book, “human relationships are pure folly.”

The writing here is vibrant and controlled. The situations run to the edge of absurdity (and horror) with an acerbic humour that sometimes is distracting, though probably deliberately so. It is clever without being full of itself, if that’s a thing. And even though all of the characters are multiply flawed, I found myself caring about them and hoping they could survive their own lives.

Certainly worth reading. And definitely a novelist I will look for again. show less

Wow. I have been reading a string of books that were more plot-driven and less sad Brooklyn girl than my usual fare, and enjoying the heck out of them. I started to think that maybe I needed a break from MFAs exploring their trauma response. This extraordinary, relentlessly entertaining, surprising, quietly heartbreaking book upended that line of thought entirely. I don't know how to explain the plot (such as it is) so I will just say that denial ain't just a river in Egypt, and that it only show more works for so long. Eventually, you find yourself living in a crumbling home and connecting to the world through a rather odd form of voyeurism and stalking and talking to and caring for animals you have anthropomorphized from bees to miniature donkeys. Just read it. It is like nothing you have ever read before. show less