The Biggest Modern Woman of the World

by Susan Swan

Swan, Susan

Genres: Canada, Fiction

340 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1983

About the author

Journalist, feminist, novelist, activist, teacher, Susan Swan’s critically acclaimed fiction has been published in twenty countries including the US, the UK, Spain, the Netherlands, and Russia. She is a co-founder of the Carol Shields Prize for Fiction, the largest literary award in the world for women.
 
Swan’s new book, Big Girls Don’t Cry: A Memoir about Taking Up Space, was published by HarperCollins in Canada and Beacon Press in the US in May 2025. Big Girls Don’t Cry tells the story of how Swan’s Amazonian size shaped her life. To be tall is to be big and to be big is a no-no for women of all sizes, Swan writes. Nobel Prize winner Olga Tokarczuk says of Swan’s writing that it offers “not only an enjoyable read but the chance to think and reflect on the vast complex living entity that is the world.” 

Swan’s other books of fiction include The Dead Celebrities Club (2019), a fascinating account of a Toronto-born tycoon jailed for fraud in the US; The Western Light (2012), a story about a girl’s love for a dubious father substitute who is also an ex-NHL star and convicted murderer; What Casanova Told Me (2004), a novel that links two women from different centuries through a long-lost journal about travels with Casanova in Italy, Greece and Turkey; Stupid Boys are Good to Relax With (1996), a collection of short stories about young women and how they relate to men; The Wives of Bath (1993), an international bestseller about a murder in a girls’ boarding school; The Last of the Golden Girls (1989), a novel about the sexual awakening of young women in an Ontario cottage country; and The Biggest Modern Woman of the World (1983), a saucy portrait of the real-life Victorian giantess Anna Swan who exhibited with P.T. Barnum.

A retired professor emerita at York University, Swan mentors creative writing students at the University of Toronto. As York’s Millennial Robarts Chair in Canadian Studies, she hosted the successful Millennial Wisdom Symposium in Toronto featuring writers and historians debating the lessons of the past. As a former chair of The Writers’ Union of Canada, Swan brought in a new benefits deal for Canadian writers and self-employed Canadians in the arts.

Susan Swan makes her home and garden in Toronto’s Annex neighbourhood.

Reviews

[Jess · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an incredible book. Susan Swan manages to construct a fictional biography (and occasional autobiography) for Anna Swan, a (real-life) Victorian giantess.

There are touches of magical realism all through the story, but every fantastic sequence is constructed in such a way as to make you believe in it (or want to believe it) just as much as you believe in the historical facts she's sprinkled throughout.

Swan (the author) has built a beautiful, tangible and complex world in this novel, so much so that every time I dove back into the book I was instantly surrounded by all the sights, sounds and smells of Swan's (the giantess) world.

Beyond the rich prose, the character of Anna Swan is so human, so perfectly flawed and fascinating, that it's difficult to leave her behind once the book is finished.

Beautiful book, definitely give it a read.

[Rivareads · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this but I couldn't get over how callously sexual aggressions where addressed, along with how different bodies where written. I doubt there was serious research on the voices of little people or giants. The book would shine if it had been an epistolary novel in it's entirety, rather than just part three.

[Eden Bowditch · Rating 5 out of 5]

Strange and lovely. The subject matter and style evoke a deeply personal journey through the life of a giantess. Familiar in its humanity.

[Maria do Socorro Baptista · Rating 3 out of 5]

Uma história de exploração e violência. Interessante, mas deprimente.

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a very bizarre book, indeed. It started off weird and wonderful and beautifully Victorian (much better Victorian writing style and story building than the vast majority of modern books meant to evoke the era), then ended up in this interminably boring, long, drawn out period of time which should have been more interesting (perhaps the most Victorian part of all?). I completely lost my desire to continue with it, and then eventually made a few starts at pushing through it. In the last third or so, it became compelling again, and I think that Swan paints a fascinating picture of Victorian womanhood. I only wish it had maintained the momentum throughout. Definitely not a book for everyone, but kind of strangely interesting, especially to someone who as a girl wished to be the tallest woman in the world.

[Crystal Allen]

I am so glad this book doesn't have it's cover on hand. Seriously the ugliest book I have ever seen. One I would be embarrassed to be seen reading in public. I'm one who definitely judges a book by it's cover. Someone in my book club chose it though so we'll see. Perhaps I'll be glad that she didn't judge this book by it's cover.

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Update: A Zero Star Book. The book was as bad as the cover. Only two people in my book club finished it. Very, very, weird book. A lot of people said they stopped reading when the main character at the age of 13 lost her virginity to an icicle. Oh well.... Barb who picked this book also picked The Way The Crow Flies and we all loved that one so she is forgiven!