No-one in this novel is happy with their lot. Rosie, whose life is dedicated to Hugo, is jealous of her schoolgirl friends, Aisha and Anouk and their life’s which are seemingly better than hers. But the ruling is almost insignificant compared to the deeper feelings running throughout the novel. Waiting outside the court, ready to go in and have their cases heard, are a cross-section of today’s society, a reflection of the people Tsiolkas writes about and the readers he is writing for. Gary, an unsuccessful artist who is frustrated working at a labourer’s job, and his wife Rosie have their day in court with Harry.
It is merely a devise to allow tensions between the characters to rise to the surface. But the physical slap enacted in Chapter One is not the central part of this book. The barbeque quickly dissolves as attendees take sides and try to work out how to manage the situation. When his brash cousin Harry, annoyed when 3 year-old Hugo, son of Aisha’s friend Rosie, threatens Harry’s son Rocco with a cricket bat, Harry slaps Hugo. Present are many of their friends and their children, and Hectors family. Hector and Aisha, married with 2 children, host a barbeque at their house in the suburbs of Melbourne. A cool, calm, irresistible masterpiece.How would you react if you saw someone slap a 3-year old child? 'Brilliant, beautiful, shockingly lucid and real, this is a novel as big as life built from small, secret, closely observed beats of the human heart. Here is a novel of immense power and scope.' COLM TOIBIN, author of Brooklyn ' The Slap is nothing short of a tour de force, and it confirms Christos Tsiolkas's reputation as one of the most significant contemporary storytellers at work today. Tsiolkas throws open a window on society, picks apart its flaws, embraces its contradictions and recognises its beauty, all the time asking the reader, Who side are you on? Honestly, one of the three or four truly great novels of the new millennium.' JOHN BOYNE, author of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas 'Once in a while a novel comes along that reminds me why I love to read: The Slap is such a book. Poignant and provocative, THE SLAP makes us question the nature of commitment and happiness, compromise and truth. Told through the eyes of eight of those present at the barbecue, this acclaimed bestseller is an unflinching interrogation of the life of the modern family. It is a single act, but the slap reverberates through the lives of everyone who witnesses it. To smack or not to smack is the question that reverberates through the interconnected lives dissected in Christos Tsiolkas' award-winning novel, now in paperback.Īt a suburban barbecue, a man slaps a child who is not his own.
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