The Slap (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"'With The Slap, Tsiolkas secures his place as one of Australia's most important novelists.' The Age" --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Description

Winner of the Commonwealth Writers' Prize 2009, this title is an international bestseller. At a suburban barbecue, a man slaps a child who is not his own...The reverberations call into question the relationships between all those who witness it. At a suburban barbecue one afternoon, a man slaps an unruly 3-year-old boy. The boy is not his son. It is a single act of violence, but this one slap reverberates through the lives of everyone who witnesses it happen. In his controversial, award-winning novel, Christos Tsiolkas presents an apparently harmless domestic incident as seen from eight very different perspectives. The result is an unflinching interrogation of our lives today; of the modern family and domestic life in the twenty-first century, a deeply thought-provoking novel about boundaries and their limits... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 485 pages
• Publisher: Allen & Unwin Australia (January 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1741753597
• ISBN-13: 978-1741753592
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,329,717 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Clever, but coarse and dark. And in the end do I really care?, June 29, 2009

By	Cecily "www.cecilypaterson.squarespace.com" (Australia) - See all my reviews

Short version: interesting concept, but don't bother unless you like dark, harsh, unloveable characters and can put up with excessively coarse language and sex scenes.



Christos Tsiolkas has won a couple of awards for this book, which centres around an Australian suburban BBQ at which an adult slaps someone else's child. When I first heard about this, I loved the idea, but the way Tsiolkas put it together left a lot to be desired for me.

¡Issues
Let's see... teenage sexuality, Muslim conversion, racism, child rearing, breastfeeding, assault and child abuse, adultery, drug taking, alcoholism, selling out to popular culture, family, role of parents, multiculturalism, John Howard's policies, Aboriginality...

It's as if Tsolkias couldn't just pick one issue to deal with. He packed this book full of all Australia's most wanted. It's a book club dream, and there will be plenty to talk about, but it's too much for me.

In places it feels as if Tsolkias is writing about issues, rather than writing a story. I don't mind a novel that delves into themes and problems, but when they overcome the story, I'd prefer it to be an essay or sermon.

¡Sex and drugs
When does a book get pornographic? There were at least 8 characters, and each of them had extremely well-described sex at least once. I'm not against a bit of nookie when it adds to the story, but this was over the top. It was definitely written from a man's point of view too - very phallus-centric.

And drugs. Frankly, I'm not sure that a father of two would be scoring speed at his family BBQ, and then getting through the afternoon without even his wife noticing that he was high. Every character except the Greek migrant grandfather and the Australian breastfeeding mother takes drugs. The young 18 year old heading off to a party after his end of school exams gets ruffled on the head by his mother when she realises he will be popping some pills. "You're growing up," she says. Come on! Are drugs that plentiful and easy to get that two businessmen, two high school students, a veterinarian, an Aussie blue collar painter and a screen writer can just take whatever they want? Maybe it's just Melbourne

¡Language
A well-placed expletive can have a tremendous effect in a story line or for a character, but by the time you've read f&*%ing c%^$ c%$#&%$ in every second sentence, it becomes boring. Just to illustrate this paragraph, I turned at random to pages 316 and 317 in my copy of the book and counted up 6 unnecessary swear words and coarse language.

I grew up with the understanding that people swore because they didn't have a very good grasp of language. The trouble is, Tsolkias does have a good grasp of language. He is a good writer. Obviously his characters are lesser people than he is.

¡Characters
The simple fact of the matter was that by the end I just didn't care about his characters. There was plenty that was ugly, dark and degenerate about each of them. There was very little that was noble, good, generous or honest. Every relationship had major flaws and was built on a flimsy foundation.

¡Summary
There was hardly anything in this book that brought hope or joy. If this is Australia, and these are Australians today, then I am sorry for us. It makes me more aware that there must be something more. God's grace seems even more necessary and beautiful when I read this book.

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Thought Provoking, September 6, 2009

By	Richard Pittman (Toronto, ON Canada) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The Slap is an interesting book. It is set in Australia and to quote the cover of the book, "At a suburban barbecue, a man slaps a child who is not his own ...".
The first chapter of the book concerns the events leading up to the slap and the rest of the book deals with the fallout.

The first chapter is electrifying. The reader knows what's going to happen and it's obvious quite early on which child will be slapped but who will do it and when is unknown. The atmosphere is very tense. The child is a type we've all seen. He is an only child who has been pampered by his mother and she won't discipline him no matter how poorly he behaves. He is almost 4 and still breastfeeds. He is a spoiled child that has no idea how to get along with other children. The other children at the party despise him.

Once the slap occurs, friends and families are divided along the lines of the child deserved it vs. no adult should slap a child. Besides philosophical divides there are also cultural divides as one of the key families involved are a traditional Greek family and others respresent various cultures in Australia. There is pressure from both camps for friends and family to suppport their position. Friendships and family relationships are affected forever. The child's mother is outraged and carries the situation to the extreme.

The book is thought provoking. I was frustrated at the child's behavior and his mother's lack of responsibility. On the other hand, I certainly wouldn't want or allow any adult to slap my children. This is a very interesting question that serves as the center of the book.

I do think Tsiolkas loses his focus in the novel and that it somewhat degenerates into a soap opera with affairs and teenage angst about sexual identity etc. The book gets a bit tiresome about 2/3 of the way through when the reader comes to grips with the original event and its implications. The Slap still moves quickly but veers unskillfully from the original premise.

I recommend it but wished that it was tighter and consistently focused.

2 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars trashy and misogynistic, June 22, 2009

By	Valencia (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews

the author tries to be edgy by making nearly every character sex-crazed and drugged out (women get a pretty poor treatment) but no amount of salacious detail can save this boring and trashy book.