“The Great Switcheroo”

Sections: Information | Plot Description | Reviews

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Information

• First published:
  • April 1974 issue of Playboy

• Related books:
  • 5 Bestsellers Including Over 40 Tales of the Unexpected
  • Lust
  • Switch B***h
  • The Best of Roald Dahl
  • The Collected Short Stories of Roald Dahl
  • The Complete Short Stories: Volume Two
  • The Roald Dahl Omnibus
• Magazine publications:
  • Playboy (v21 #4) - April 1974
• Movies:
  • Idealnaya para (1992)
• Audio Books:
  • “Milostné rošády – Velká rošáda” read by Lukáš Hlavica
  • “The Great Switcheroo” read by Patricia Neal
  • “The Great Switcheroo” read by Shane Rimmer

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Plot Description

This is a very adult story and I would highly recommend that kids don’t read it. Not only is it of a very sexual nature, but it’s got some questionable language too. It’s from Dahl’s book Switch B***h. I’m going to keep the plot description as vague as possible.

Spoiler warning! Vic lusts after Samantha, the wife of his best friend and neighbor Jerry. Samantha is a faithful woman, though, and Vic knows he stands no chance of seducing her. So he concocts a plan that will allow him and Jerry to switch wives for an evening without the women knowing it. He manages to convince Jerry of the plan and the two of them spend many weeks working out the details. On the fateful night, the two men switch beds and make love to the other man’s wife. Then they return home, full of glee at their own cleverness. Vic gets quite a shock the next morning, though, when his wife Mary admits that she’s never really enjoyed sex with him… before last night.

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Reviews

• “The Art of Vengeance” by Joyce Carol Oates (The New York Review of Books)
• “Getting Even” by Stephen Amidon (The Nation)