Big Swiss - Jen Beagin

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.

One day, Greta recognizes Big Swiss’s voice in town and they quickly become enmeshed. While Big Swiss is unaware Greta has eavesdropped 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 anything to sustain the relationship… (link)

Review: 2/5

I don’t know what it was about this book, but I just got a bad vibe. I know that the characters are supposed to be morally gray, and that a lot of people really enjoy this book because the characters can be “ relatable”. I know that there was a lot of hype around this book, and I even have two queer friends who read it and they really enjoyed it. But to me, a different queer person, it felt a lot like an OOOO BAD BAD NAUGHTY gay affair. I just feel that using women in queer affairs is an over sexualization of bisexual women who “are just lesbians” when they’re with women.

Honestly, I just hate books about affairs. Ahhhh, me and my high horse strike again! Something in my morals, in my deep rooted ethics, I just can’t justify it. There’s something really upsetting to me about this book… and I still can’t exactly pinpoint what it is. In Big Swiss and her husband‘s relationship, they were trying for a kid and seem to be moving up in their relationship, all the while big Swiss is having an affair… I just couldn’t get past it. (Yeah, I take things personally and can’t separate the art from the artist.)

I think I really need to start reading the synopsis of books before I do read them, because if I knew this would be about a queer affair, I don’t know if I would’ve read it. But look at my glowing review of Song of Achilles. Was there not a queer affair in that? Of course there was! So what's the difference? I couldn’t honestly tell you, besides the vibe of “fetishization of lesbians” this book gave me.

There was also a very confusing line at the end of the book said by the main character, Greta or something (I can’t remember her name tbh). She said something like (paraphrasing heavy here) “ I turned Italian, and then I turned Chinese” referencing her messed up face… I am still reeling about what does that mean? But it inherently feels racist in some strange way… and after looking up book reviews about this, a lot of Asian leaders have been trying to spread the word about how there are multiple racist comments in this book alone. I’m not about to re-read and try to hyper-analyze those comments from an Asian perspective, since I’m not Asian. And also since I don’t have a hypersensitivity to that attitude, but I obviously don’t endorse it! Also not re-reading since I just didn’t like this book. Sue me!

Alas, I have a non-paying job to do. And I do it for you. (purrrrr poetry!) I honestly just made the playlist to match the mood of the book, not the actual storyline (for the most part). I felt that this book had so much chaotic energy, but in a calm kind of way, where it was written in digestible segments. Do you know what that reminds me of? Big Thief (the band!) Some of their music is on here.

Spotify: LINK