“Big Swiss” by Jen Beagin

Easing out of Westeros is going really well so far. I started a new book on Friday and finished it on Sunday! And not because it was a teeny tiny book, either. I mean it wasn't huge, but it was a good, book-sized book. 

I picked this up during our most recent trip to the great Friends of the Library bookstore in Los Alamos (last month). It was the bees on the spine that first caught my eye, and then when I unshelved it to look at the cover, the art there was unexpected. Nothing to do with bees at all. Which is fine; I'm not sure I'd really be interested in a novel that was actually about bees. And I definitely wanted to know what happened to the upside-down lady. Sam wondered what she was doing too. Falling? Dying? 

Anyway, Big Swiss turned out to be very readable. And very quirky. It's about Greta (or sometimes Rebekah) Work, who works as a transcriptionist for a local sex therapist. The story starts in quite a voyeuristic way, and the transcription thing almost seemed too obvious as a plot device for a little bit (the scene in the coffee shop where she recognized the voices of several of the therapist's clients and mentally reviewed her transcriptions of their sessions) but then she meets a woman at the dog park whose voice she recognizes as the patient Greta had given the nickname of Big Swiss, and from there the book turns into something else entirely. But I was all in.

I will mention (in a vague way, which I hope is not spoiler-y) that as I read, I guessed that the story about Keith was completely made up, and that Luke was actually the assailant. Why else would Big Swiss have bruises on her legs, and why else would Luke be a shiv collector? Well, I guessed wrong. Although looking back I'd say if this book had been written by Liane Moriarty I would have been right.

Oh and I probably owe it to you to tell you my impression is that the cover art is there for the atmosphere it evokes rather than actually being directly linked to the narrative.