The unfortunate house cleaner in question is Mona, a 26-year-old woman who's recently moved to Taos, N.M., to escape the demons of her past.

Vacuum in the Dark is a funny and surprisingly sweet book about a young woman who grew up too fast and is trying desperately to reinvent herself. It's a fitting beginning to a wildly exuberant novel that doesn't shy away from the weirder and more disgusting parts of life.

The book opens with a house cleaner accidentally washing her hands with human feces, believing it to be 'fancy hippie soap.' Panicking, she seeks advice from her best imaginary friend, Terry Gross, whose talk show Fresh Air is famously broadcast on a public radio network (the name of which escapes me at the moment). In her new novel, Vacuum in the Dark, Jen Beagin has decided to go a different way. How?Īt some point in their careers, all authors have heard some variation on the advice 'Grab the reader from the front page.' For some writers of literary fiction, this translates to 'Describe the sun shining on a New England lake in very exacting detail,' or something of that nature. Your purchase helps support NPR programming. I delighted in this cynical, sexy, hopeless, hopeful, Hudson Valley jubilee.Close overlay Buy Featured Book Title Vacuum in the Dark Author Jen Beagin A new - and not entirely honest - relationship is going to be born.A relationship that will transform both of their lives.'Big Swiss is a dark party a hilarious romp through new age pop psychology, romantic obsession, sapphic acrobatics, dogs, and the desire to end it all. Greta is miles away, sitting at a desk in her own house, wearing only headphones, fingerless gloves, a kimono, and legwarmers, transcribing this disembodied voice.What Greta doesn't know is that she's about to bump into Big Swiss in the local dog park. Nor has Greta actually ever been to Switzerland.Greta and Big Swiss are not in the same room, or even the same building. She's a head-turner: including the heads of infants and dogs.Well that's how Greta imagines seeing her they haven't actually ever met in person. Greta can see her now: dressed top to toe in white, that adorable gap between her two front teeth, her penetrating blue eyes. That's Greta's nickname for her - she is tall, and she is from Switzerland. Trauma shouldn't be this fun.' SARA PASCOEGreta liked knowing people's secrets. I laughed so hard it ached.' GILLIAN ANDERSON'Juicy, salacious and compelling. ** SOON TO BE A MAJOR HBO SERIES STARRING JODIE COMER **'Made me laugh and think too much (the right amount?) about sex and death and honesty.' MONICA HEISEY 'Utterly addictive.

Big swiss jen beagin summary