When you begin to read a book, and you find that it is liberally splattered with a word that you find very objectionable, when the story seems to be meandering along at no great pace, and when, furthermore, the book treats with a group of characters who are, in this reviewer's opinion, with very few exceptions, a rather unpleasant bunch, it says something for the author's storytelling abilities that I became interested enough in these awful people to want to know what happened to them in the end. His accents, his ability to segue into female and children's roles - and he even had to sing in some parts! Really, really good. Took a little warming up but he really came through. What about Alex Dimitriades’s performance did you like? Because, again, I loved the premise and the writing was strong. Would you be willing to try another book from Christos Tsiolkas? Why or why not? I mean, how much do you need to know about the lives and history of the elderly aunt and uncle of the guy who did the slapping? Or the teenage boy who babysits for the slapped kid? It would have been more than enough to further explore the 4 or 5 characters who were directly involved in the plot line. What I didn't like was the lengthy explorations into the lives of characters who had little or nothing to do with the actual plot. I loved the plot premise - that an action, in a nanosecond, has the ability to shake things up in such a huge way. I downloaded this book because of the upcoming TV miniseries based on it. What did you like best about The Slap? What did you like least?

In its clear-eyed and forensic dissection of the ever-growing middle class and its aspirations and fears, The Slap is also a poignant, provocative novel about the nature of loyalty and happiness, compromise and truth. What unfolds is a powerful, haunting novel about love, sex and marriage, parenting and children, and the fury and intensity - all the passions and conflicting beliefs - that family can arouse. The slap and its consequences force them all to question their own families and the way they live, their expectations, beliefs and desires. The Slap is told from the points of view of eight people who were present at the barbecue. In this remarkable novel, Christos Tsiolkas turns his unflinching and all-seeing eye onto that which connects us all: the modern family and domestic life in the 21st century. This event has a shocking ricochet effect on a group of people, mostly friends, who are directly or indirectly influenced by the incident.

The best-selling cult author of Loaded and Dead Europe here turns his blowtorch onto the belly of middle-class suburban Australia and its notions of child-rearing and acceptable behavior.Īt a suburban barbecue, a man slaps a child who is not his own.

Christos the slap