Sunday book pick: The darkly comic and sex-talking novel ‘Big Swiss’ tells women to take it easy

There are at least several dozen books about the troubled 20-year-something sexually and emotionally deranged woman who is perpetually sad and yearning. It always made me wonder about what would happen when this woman turned 40 or 50. The answers are hard to come by – very few writers (or perhaps publishers) seem interested in the lives of lonely middle-aged women. In her novel Big Swiss, Jen Beagin tackles this question as a continuum through the lives of three women – Big Swiss or Flavia who is 28, Greta who is 45, and Sabine who is 55. All of them too old to “come of age”, this eccentric novel (both in structure and plot) reminds us that perhaps not everything gets okay with time and getting older.

Greta, 45, recently broken up, hardly making any money as a sex therapist’s transcriptionist, lives with her longtime friend and landlady Sabine. Besides her dog Piñon, they share the house with a gigantic beehive that hangs right in the middle of it. The ever-buzzing beehive is a strange contrast to the rest of Sabine’s house which is meticulously done up with tastefully chosen artefacts and upholstery. The house, even in disrepair, is stately. Greta’s room is...

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