BIG SWISS

A funny, tragic and darkly absurd story of an unlikely relationship between two women of polar opposites, who seek sanctuary and love in each other’s unconventional lifestyles. The perfect time to read this funny and affectionately bizarre story before it arrives to the screen starring (what better casting!) Jodie Comer.

Greta is middle aged, single, broke and has moved from California with her precious Jack Russell dog called Piñon to a dilapidated mansion in Hudson NYC owned by her eccentric friend Sabine. Greta works as a transcriber for the town’s sex and relationship coach called Om for a book he is writing. Greta finds herself particularly drawn to his latest client whom she names Big Swiss for the simple reason she is tall and from Switzerland. Big Swiss comes across as a strong and formidable woman. She is a gynaecologist, married and wealthy, but we soon discover has experienced a near death beating in her younger years and has never experienced an orgasm. One day, whilst walking Piñon in the dog park Greta bumps into Big Swiss (real name Flavia), instantly recognises this person from Om’s couch and decides to start up a conversation. To avoid detection, Greta calls herself Rebecca and fails to disclose that she is privy to Big Swiss’s sessions with Om. So begins an intense and perilous relationship.

This book is tragic, funny and darkly absurd. The unlikely relationship between Greta and Big Swiss unearths both their pent-up anxieties and hidden suffering. At times the story is quite 'off the wall’ with Greta’s haphazard living arrangements adding to the bizarreness. There is a beehive occupying her kitchen ceiling and various less welcome insect invasions invading the house and many of the periphery characters seem to be life’s ‘oddballs’. As the relationship between Greta and Big Swiss intensifies so it is only a matter of time before the wrong word will be said, or they will be seen together. The intensity of their clandestine relationship reaches boiling point when Piñon is injured causing Greta to spiral into theatrical hysteria, her screaming sounding like “badly played bagpipes” and forcing both women to confront their own internal demons.