Big Swiss

Sam's Review

How much quirk is too much? Where you sit on the deliberately wonky scale of amusing weirdness will probably determine your response to this book. That, and the very explicit, very funny sex scenes. 
 
Big Swiss is the unconventional love story between two women. Greta is a forty-five-year-old who transcribes sex therapy sessions for a fishnet- wearing therapist named Om. Flavia is a twenty-eight-year-old gynaecologist married to a man, and being treated by Om because she's never had an orgasm. As Greta transcribes Flavia's first therapy session, she becomes entranced by her client’s striking voice and her low tolerance for Om's haphazard questions. Days later the two bump into each other in the dog park. Greta recognises Flavia's voice, nicknames her Big Swiss "because she was tall and from Switzerland, and often dressed from top to toe in white, the color of surrender.” She also lies about herself so that the two of them can see each other again.
 
Too quirky? We haven't even started. Greta lives in a dilapidated farmhouse outside the oh-so-hipster town of Hudson. The farmhouse has a beehive in the kitchen, vultures on the roof and is owned by long-standing friend and low-level drug dealer Sabine. The town has a psychic seamstress and shops which sell single types of vegetables in many varieties. It makes the more eccentric parts of Fremantle look like Claremont.
 
The book is laugh-out-loud funny, frequently in X-rated ways. There's one perfectly timed, incredibly rude punchline about the French dish Ortolan that made me snort water from my nose. Elsewhere there are arch lines aplenty, particularly about therapy and self-image: "...the shrink diagnosed her with emotional detachment disorder, which seemed like a stretch to Greta, who preferred to think of it as ‘poise’ on a bad day, ‘grace’ on a good one, and, when she was feeling full of herself, ‘serenity.’ ” 
 
The counterpoint to the book’s knowing jokes are the matter-of-fact descriptions of the emotional abuse that Greta endured as a child and the brutal attack Big Swiss suffered a few years earlier. The deliberately jarring switches in mood heighten the impact and lasting effects of the abuse, and whether the women allow it to determine their lives. Greta and Big Swiss have different opinions, arguing fervently between frequent bouts of sex. 

Other Reviews
 
A sex-comedy that discusses abuse? A story of survival with bawdy bits? Big Swiss is funny, frustrating, offensive, endearing, affectionate and infuriating, but it’s certainly never dull. 

'Made me laugh and think too much (the right amount?) about sex and death and honesty.' - MONICA HEISEY


'Utterly addictive. . . I laughed so hard it ached.' - GILLIAN ANDERSON


'Juicy, salacious and compelling. Trauma shouldn't be this fun.' - SARA PASCOE