“I spent a lot of time alone, but I was rarely lonely because I like my own brain.”
Jen Beagin’s Big Swiss is a darkly comic, offbeat novel that anyone who has been online in the literary world will have heard of. The story of a directionless middle-aged woman named Greta and her fixation on a woman she calls Big Swiss, this tale has earned itself some serious acclaim and has become a global bestseller in the new “wronged women” genre of the fiction world. Through its strange and often uncomfortable premise, Big Swiss explores themes of loneliness, sexuality, mental health, power, and obsession, all delivered with a voice that leans heavily into absurdism and dark humour. But is this viral hit really worth the hype? Join us today at What We Reading for our Big Swiss book review to find out how this tale of messy people and unconventional connections really scores!
Date Published: 2023
Author: Jen Beagin
Genre: Contemporary, Queer
Pages: 336
Goodreads Rating: 3.68/5
Big Swiss Summary
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 whom she affectionately dubs Big Swiss.
One day, Greta recognises Big Swiss’ voice in town and the pair quickly become entangled. Whilst Big Swiss is unaware of Greta’s eavesdropping on her most intimate exchanges, Greta has never been more herself with anyone. Her attraction to Big Swiss overrides her guilt, and she’ll do just about anything to keep their relationship sustained…
Check Out Our Best Big Swiss Book Club Questions
What Worked
It’s easy to see why Big Swiss has struck such a chord in the literary world. Jen Beagin’s blend of dark humour, sharply drawn eccentric characters, and candid engagement with themes such as mental health, sexuality, and obsession is immediately appealing – and we certainly weren’t immune to it here.
One of the book’s biggest strengths is its commitment to centring a demographic so often sidelined: a middle-aged woman. Greta, alongside Big Swiss herself, is vividly realised – extremely flawed, oddly relatable, and allowed for some genuine and authentic-feeling development. From the outset, there’s a quiet inevitability to their relationship, a sense that it’s doomed to fail, and Beagin resists the temptation to soften that truth.
The novel’s voice is distinct and confident – funny, strange, occasionally grotesque, but always intensely readable. It rarely ever takes itself too seriously, yet still manages to handle its heavier themes with a careful, measured touch.
Perhaps most unexpectedly, Big Swiss is also a heartwarming story: a fresh, insightful and deeply human exploration of messy lives and unconventional connections, grounded by characters who are eccentric but undeniably lovable.
What Didn’t
Our beef with Big Swiss has less to do with anything technical and more to do with our personal feelings about the taste, tone, and execution of the story.
At times, the book feels overly committed to its own eccentricity. It’s clear that Jen Beagin had in her head that every single character was going to be the most quirky character you’ve ever met since the last one you met; however, as the story progresses – especially in Sabine and Greta’s increasingly chaotic home – this strangeness all starts feeling forced rather than organic.
Nearly every character we meet in the book comes with a wacky trait or a strange kink, and the cumulative effect soon became more exhausting than enlightening.
The humour, too, can feel overworked. Whilst much of it lands early on, the relentless absurdity of every scenario, every character, and every interaction, becomes jarring by the novel’s end. All the outrageous descriptions stack up until they feel dizzy.
We also want to draw attention to Beagin’s exploration of poverty in Big Swiss. Greta’s financial precarity is made clear from the get-go, but never fully explored. Instead of grounding this in tangible, inevitable realities like food insecurity, the narrative opts for more whimsical stand-ins. It feels like a missed opportunity to inject some more depth and realism into Greta’s situation.
Perhaps most significantly, the central relationship between Big Swiss and Greta never felt fully formed. The pair rarely communicate in ways that suggest real chemistry; their interactions are dominated by Greta’s ramblings, Big Swiss’ irritations, and frequent snapping and snapping back. You don’t get to believe in the intensity of Greta’s infatuation, or in a dynamic that felt genuinely mutual.
This disconnect is particularly evident in the dinner scene between Greta, Big Swiss, and her husband – a moment that should have been brimming with rich thematic insight, but instead just feels weirdly artificial. No one behaves quite like a real person, and the potential of the setting is lost because of this.
Wrap Up
In the end, Big Swiss is much more of a novel we can appreciate more than we can fully love. The book is undeniably fun and funny, full of sharp observations and an oddball charm that will undoubtedly make it a favourite for the right reader.
Its dark humour, distinctive voice, and commitment to centring messy, unconventional lives are easy to admire.
For us, though, the relentless absurdism became exhausting rather than invigorating, to the point where the book itself feels worn down by its own eccentricity – something that is on show particularly in its conclusion.
Despite its many strengths, Big Swiss ultimately feels like a concept that hasn’t been explored to its full potential, leaving this viral bestseller as a solid, middle-of-the-road type of read, rather than the memorable modern classic it clearly wants to be for us.
Our Rating: 3.5/5
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Part-time reader, part-time rambler, and full-time Horror enthusiast, James has been writing for What We Reading since 2022. His earliest reading memories involved Historical Fiction, Fantasy and Horror tales, which he has continued to take with him to this day. James’ favourite books include The Last (Hanna Jameson), The Troop (Nick Cutter) and Chasing The Boogeyman (Richard Chizmar).
