Eccentric and wise ... In Beagin’s hands, the entire situation remains clean and pillowy ... While Big Swiss is one of the funniest books of the last few years, Beagin can handle darkness ... Hilarious, humanistic ... There is ample joy to be found in Big Swiss ... Shelve her latest novel alongside those of Richard Russo, Nora Ephron, Armistead Maupin, Jess Walter and other comic novelists whose works are both timely and ultimately transcendent.
Though the book is bogged down by cultural references and silly wordplay...the dissonances between Greta’s transcribed sessions and her lived life make for a fun read with the quick pace of a Nell Zink novel ... That Greta begins healing in a town full of alleged healers is part of the book’s irony — and its charm.
In Big Swiss, trauma and sexual obsession intertwine to create a sprawling and delightful mess ... The novel offers a satirical take on our therapy-obsessed culture, our need to prescribe meaning and labels to every banal event in our lives ... Beagin’s witty and tender rendering of Greta keeps the reader rooting for her, even when Greta begs to be abandoned ... For all the discussions of trauma and anxiety, Beagin’s novel is satisfyingly dirty — and perhaps a little deranged. I mean this as a compliment.
A refreshingly anti-trauma-plot novel, posing the question: Does self-victimization come at the cost of an interesting or, at the very least, okay life? ... The book is wry, fresh, and absorbing, without flashbacks, maudlin confessions, or self-seriousness.
Sexy madcap ... It veers from horny to humorous to macabre in zigs and zags. It’s a hot a sticky trap that’s instantly immersive, like a bee’s honey. Beagin’s prose titillates throughout, and movement between Greta’s transcripts and close-third narration from Greta’s point of view gives the story an interesting shape, asking us to view characters from afar and then smashing us close ... The novel isn’t dismissive or flip about trauma itself but rather is sharply critical of social media’s breeding of trauma discourse ... Very funny ... Subtle and over the top.
A fluffy sex comedy with a dark underbelly. In fact, its dark underbelly has a darker underbelly, which is then startlingly fluffy. There are multiple trauma plotlines ... The voice is sharp, the plot is compelling, the jokes are funny and sometimes startling, as the very best comedy is; it’s easy to forgive the odd moments when two elements clash. What is sometimes a problem is Beagin’s excessive use of quirky details. Everything and everyone is manically peculiar ... Often the action stops dead while the characters deal with the latest beasts and grotesques, and it can come to feel as if there is a hive of 60,000 quirks living in the novel’s ceiling. This becomes jarring in the sections dealing with suicide and its aftermath, a subject that just doesn’t want to be silly. But the book is salvaged, time and again, by Beagin’s formidable wit and her ability to write. Every page is packed with good jokes, keen observations and idiosyncratically wonderful prose ... In my darker moments as a reviewer, I sometimes wonder if book reviews are even useful, given that different readers have such different tastes. With this book I found a sort of answer. I can recommend it even to people who might end up hating it. It made my brain do interesting, uncomfortable things and left me questioning my beliefs about attraction, grief, how recovery works, and a dozen other fundamental things. It can be offensive, frustrating, even unconvincing, but it’s never boring. It’s giddy fluff with lashings of grit and a touch of holy fire.
... a fecund sensuality reminiscent of Melissa Broder and Ottessa Moshfegh; Greta’s descriptions of private parts in particular can be downright baroque. On the other hand, the writing here can also seem evasive at times, constantly hiding its feelings behind jokes and winky Gen-X references, which might be appropriate for the story of a compulsive liar but can occasionally be exhausting. An aimlessness also takes over the proceedings as the book goes on ... There’s a great concept but not always great plotting behind it. Still, like a good friend, Big Swiss is worth sticking with.
Quirky ... Here we have a wild mouse of a yarn, veering around, often hilariously. True — the thread gets lost frequently so that there is some chin-scratching; there are wobbly, circuitous detours — some seeming distracting and beside the point. Extended scenes that are flashbacks are overwrought; the book flaps along to an ungainly close which pretty much peters out. But, before that happens, there are a lot of highly amusing episodes, and, it should be noted, a great deal of lively, well-felt and depicted sex. Big Swiss is effervescent and funny, even if overcooked to some extent. While you don’t always know exactly what the hell is going on, you may find yourself engaged, and probably laughing some, nevertheless.
A bold, brash, often outlandish novel with a very clever job title for the central character ... Features a cast of intriguing outsiders introduced in quick, memorable bursts ... Full of such offbeat, accurate descriptions. There’s a pinpoint passage on the varying moods of the menstrual cycle that deserves its own award. In short, Big Swiss is a modern, funny whirlwind of a novel about a traumatised transcriber who ends up setting her own record straight.
A bold, idiosyncratic novel ... The humour is black and savage and Greta’s deadpan reactions to the conversations she is transcribing provide plenty of laugh-out-loud moments ... A few gripes: the love story at the centre never quite hits the spot and the romance doesn’t really get a chance to blossom, perhaps because everyone is too busy dissecting their damaged personalities and overanalysing the bin fires of their pasts.
A delightfully off-kilter romantic comedy ... While the interpersonal intrigue is palpable, this is also very much a novel about place, full of alternately snide and affectionate commentary about the rapidly gentrifying town ... This unconventional love story has a surplus of appeal from page one.
A wonderfully off-kilter protagonist ... Beagin gives her characters choices and second chances, and the happiness she offers them begins with themselves ... Beagin establishes her place among artfully eccentric writers like Nell Zink, Elif Batuman, and Jennifer Egan.
