Greta & Sabine & Flavia & Piñon

Who these fictional characters are and why I miss them now that I'm done with them

If you’ve read the book, you know that Greta and Sabine and Flavia and Piñon are characters from Big Swiss, the latest from author Jen Beagin.

There’s been a lot written about this book, and it’s easy to see why. For one, it’s extremely weird and people love to dissect the off-colored. Big Swiss is about Greta, a 45-year-old woman living in an ancient Dutch farmhouse in Hudson, New York with her friend Sabine and thousands of bees. (It’s important to note the bees live in the kitchen, not outside.) Greta is a transcriptionist for a sex therapist who goes by the name Om, and she falls in love with Om’s client, a 28-year-old woman called Big Swiss.

Or, Big Swiss is the moniker Greta bestows upon her while transcribing her therapy sessions. We later learn her name is Flavia and that she’s a moneyed married woman with some hefty trauma she’s unwinding with Om — and therefore with his transcriptionist, Greta.

Greta is first swept up by the woman’s appearance. Of Big Swiss, she says:

Her pale blue eyes were of the penetrating, cult-leader variety.

But as a transcriptionist, Greta is not present for these appointments. This is only the vision she drums up of her while listening to her speak during her sessions.

Of Big Swiss’s voice, which Greta cannot stop listening to, she says:

It was a voice you could snag your sweater on, or perhaps chip one of your teeth but it was also sweet enough to suck on, to sleep with in your mouth.

In the beginning, we only witness Big Swiss’s voice in the form of transcriptions, with her initials FEW, as Om requests, like this:

OM: I wonder if you would allow me to share my own journey with you.
FEW: Please don’t.

But as good stories go, of course Greta and Big Swiss meet in real life. It happens at a dog park and Greta recognizes the voice she’d spent so much time alone with in her room. When Big Swiss talks to her, Greta panics and introduces herself as Rebekah, and the obsession morphs from a one-sided affair to a full-blown relationship. As you can imagine, shit blows up later in the novel. But it’s not all a ruse.

Kate McKean

wrote a post titled Big Swiss Takes a Big Swing, which breaks down how beautifully Beagin executes the wild and weird premise of the book:

“What really works is that Beagin takes this sexy, eye-catching, oh really? pitch and makes her characters do real emotional work with it. It’s not a lark. It’s not a gag. It’s not there for the first twenty pages and then brushed aside. There are stakes to Greta’s actions and we see them a mile away and still don’t mind when the inevitable happens.”

The book isn’t just crazy weird, though; it’s touching, too. The tenderness arrives sneakily in the final pages when a pair of emotional support donkeys arrive at the farmhouse — animals Sabine had purchased long ago.

What I appreciate more than the weirdness, more than delivering on the premise, more than the tenderness at the end, is the characters. Beagin does a spectacular job of creating well-rounded characters who come alive on the page. I feel like I know each one on a personal level — the animals included. There’s Greta and Big Swiss, there’s Greta’s roommate Sabine. There are two dogs, Piñon and Silas, and later, there are donkeys, Ellington and Pantaloon, each of which have their own personalities.

The super close third-person point of view does double duty: it carries a lot of the characterization while also revealing the book’s comedic slant. During an interplay between Greta and Big Swiss, when Greta is feeling insecure, the narration says of Greta herself, “Why was she talking like a goober?” The POV is so close to Greta that we’re almost in her head, but we’re not technically in her head, and therefore don’t feel the claustrophobia we might feel were this written in first-person POV.

But while characterization comes through in the narration, it positively shines in the dialogue. Take this conversation between Greta and Sabine, who is counting her cash:

“I’m afraid I’m going to have to get a j-j-j—dammit. I’m going to need a j-j-j—hold on, I almost had it—a juhhh—”

“Juicer?” Greta said.

“Job,” Sabine said.

One of Sabine’s favorite gags was to stammer over the word job,” Greta remembered now.

I laughed out loud at this. I liked Sabine from the beginning; I loved Sabine when I read this part.

Similarly — and to revisit the visceral descriptions of Big Swiss’s voice — she says of herself in a therapy session:

FEW: I’m told my voice is like a blade. When I pick out pastries at the bakery, it sounds like I’m ordering someone’s execution.

It’s all so unbelievably clever.

I picked this book up because I wanted to understand the hype. I loved this book because of the characters in it.

I recommend Big Swiss if you like:

• Gritty female protagonists

• Dark humor

• Scandalous / taboo relationships

• Quirky friendships

• Squirming a little bit as you read

It’s a wild ride with a touching ending and a slew of fully fleshed-out characters, whom I am truthfully missing quite a bit.

What I’m reading: Homeseeking by Karissa Chen and Good Inside by Dr. Becky Kennedy. I am really excited for the arrival of Coco Mellors’s new book, Blue Sisters, which was just published this week in the US. I will be pushing aside my mountainous TBR pile to read this one!

What are you excited about? What are you reading?

Love,

Words on Words is a free newsletter about books that hits inboxes on Thursdays. Subscription upgrades exist so readers can support my work if they feel compelled, but these weekly essays are free.

When you purchase books through my links, you support Words on Words (I get credits for more books) and an indie bookstore of your choice at no additional cost to you.