I was also useless without sugar, caffeine, and nicotine. This unconventional love story has a surplus of appeal from page one.“ I’d never done manual labor before, and I remember my hands aching in the middle of the night. When encountering another of the therapist's patients and his wife at a coffee shop, Greta notes, 'like most people in Hudson, they were better looking than average and dressed like boutique farmers.' Beagin is a gifted storyteller with a flair for the eccentric and a soft spot for a wayward soul. While the interpersonal intrigue is palpable, this is also very much a novel about place, full of alternately snide and affectionate commentary about the rapidly gentrifying town. At the dog park, Greta and Big Swiss (whose real name is Flavia) meet by chance, and romance between the two blossoms, complicated by the fact that Greta is privy to Big Swiss's most private inner thoughts. Greta is working as a transcriptionist for a local sex therapist named Om when she is captivated by the voice of one of Om's patients, a 30-something married woman whom she nicknames Big Swiss for her height and nationality, who used to live in Brooklyn. The protagonist, Greta, is in her 40s, living in a semi-derelict Dutch farmhouse in Hudson, N.Y., with her beloved dog, Piñón. “A fantastic, weird-as-hell, super funny novel” ( Bustle), Big Swiss is both a love story and a deft examination of infidelity, mental health, sexual stereotypes, and more-from an amazingly talented, singular voice in contemporary fiction.īeagin (Vacuum in the Dark) delivers a delightfully off-kilter romantic comedy set in a Hudson Valley increasingly transformed by transplants from New York City. Her attraction to Big Swiss overrides her guilt, and she’ll do anything to sustain the relationship…

While Big Swiss is unaware Greta has eavesdropped on her most intimate exchanges, Greta has never been more herself with anyone. One day, Greta recognizes Big Swiss’s voice in town and they quickly become enmeshed. She becomes infatuated with his newest client, a repressed married woman she affectionately refers to as Big Swiss. Greta spends her days transcribing therapy sessions for a sex coach who calls himself Om. The house is unrenovated, uninsulated, and full of bees. Greta lives with her friend Sabine in an ancient Dutch farmhouse in Hudson, New York. “One of the funniest books of the last few years” ( Los Angeles Times) about a sex therapist’s transcriptionist and her affair with one of the patients. “Wild…hilarious…so good.” - Cosmopolitan, Best Books of the Year * “A laugh-out-loud bad romance for Gen Xers and an ode to misfits who just want to belong.” - Oprah Daily * “Always interesting…too fun to stop.” - Vanity Fair

Big swiss a novel