Week One: Big Swiss
JUNE 7, 2023 • CAMP TOB WEEK ONE
Big Swiss
with Activity Leader Karen Alexander
Hello, everyone, and welcome to week one of Camp ToB 2023! As a reminder, our June vibe is “every story is an unconventional love story,” and our book pairing for the month is Big Swiss by Jen Beagin and Couplets by Maggie Millner.
Now let’s welcome Activity Leader Karen Alexander (aka Bookherd), who will guide us through Big Swiss over the next two weeks.
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Greta lives with her friend Sabine in an ancient Dutch farmhouse in Hudson, NY. 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.
This has been excerpted from the publisher’s summary and edited for length.
Hi Karen, and thank you for joining us. Please tell us where you’re writing from!
Hello! I’m a librarian in the Minneapolis/Saint Paul metro area.
And how long have you been following the Tournament of Books?
Since about 2016 as a way to learn about newly published fiction. I don’t have time to read all the Tournament books, but I’ve done the summer reading list since 2017. I love that it gets me reading things I wouldn’t necessarily pick for myself.
And what do you like to read?
Here is a sample of my most frequently used tags on Goodreads: Historical Fiction, Unhappy Families, Adventure, Excellent Female Characters, Excellent Villains, and Books About Books. One of my professional curiosities is how people find books they want to read. It has been a lot of fun to follow the ToB discussions over the years, and I’m excited about participating this year.
We’re excited you’re here, Karen! Now: Over to you to lead us through the first half—through chapter 10—of Big Swiss.
Thanks! Here are my questions to get things going:
What’s your reaction to the premise that Om records his sessions and is planning to write a book, for which he evidently needs these sessions transcribed? Do you have expectations for where the book is headed based on this?
Greta presents as quite self assured. She found herself at a place in her life where she needed change, so she quit her job and a long time stable relationship, moved to a different part of the country, and took up something completely new. Then we get this sentence (from her initial interview with Om): “Although she was newly single and happier than she’d been in years, a small part of her was still ready to die, and still enjoyed telling lies.” From what we’ve read so far, what’s your assessment of where she is now, and how she’s doing?
One of the things I found funny in this book (which I found a lot less funny than I expected) were Greta’s responses to Om’s questions as she listened to his session recordings. In Flavia’s (Big Swiss’s) first session with Om, she reacts negatively to his using the word “trauma” for what happened to her, and Greta, listening to this, says, “Whoa, hello.” I took this as the moment when Flavia first got Greta’s attention. What is it about Flavia that captivates Greta, initially and after they meet?
Open-ended question, interpret this however you want: What is going on with that beehive in the old Dutch farmhouse where Greta and Sabine are living?
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