In the Ottessa Moshfegh tradition of severely messed-up female protagonists, Beagin gives us 45-year-old Greta, a former pharm tech with a recently broken engagement whose current job it is to transcribe the sessions of a sex coach - and we're not talking about a serious therapist here: Om is, as the name suggests, a New Age amateur who is still consulted by lots of folk, thus granting Greta access to numerous potentially compromising secrets of the people living around her in Hudson, New York. Although Big Swiss is unaware of Greta’s true identity, Greta has never been more herself with anyone.īold, outlandish, and filled with irresistible characters, Big Swiss is both a love story and also a deft examination of infidelity, mental health, sexual stereotypes, and more-from an amazingly talented, one-of-a-kind voice in contemporary fiction. In a panic, she introduces herself with a fake name and they quickly become enmeshed. One day, Greta recognizes Big Swiss’s voice at the dog park. They both have dark histories, but Big Swiss chooses to remain unattached to her suffering while Greta continues to be tortured by her past. 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. She spends her days transcribing therapy sessions for a sex coach who calls himself Om.

Greta lives with her friend Sabine in an ancient Dutch farmhouse in Hudson, New York.

When they accidentally meet in real life, an explosive affair ensues. A brilliantly original and funny novel about a sex therapist’s transcriptionist who falls in love with a client while listening to her sessions.

Big swiss by jen beagin