The bestselling cult author of Loaded and Dead Europe turns his blowtorch onto the belly of middle-class suburban Australia and its notions of child-rearing and acceptable behaviour.
Description
At a suburban barbecue, a man slaps a child who is not his own.
This event has a shocking ricochet effect on a group of people, mostly friends, who are directly or indirectly influenced by the event.
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 twenty-first century. The Slap is told from the points of view of eight people who were present at the barbecue. The slap and its consequences force them all to question their own families and the way they live, their expectations, beliefs and desires.
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. 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.
Click here to see Christos discussing The Slap on ABC's Lateline
Reader Review
'Tsiolkas' novel was compelling, returning again to his old stomping
grounds: Melbourne, multiculturalism, and personal morality. In The
Slap he creates a dysfunctional milieu around the central character,
the unlikeable but physically mesmeric Hector. ...
Already I've recommended this book to friends, and welcome the return to more familiar territory from Tsiolkas.' - Rebecca Boreham
'The strength of the novel is the way Tsiolkas manages to get into the
voice of each character; spanning age groups (from seventeen to
seventy) and across ethnicities and class divides.' - Annie Condon
More reader reviews
Awards
Winner, Overall Best Book the Commonwealth Writers' Prize 2009
Winner, ABIA Literary Fiction Book of the Year 2009 and Overall Book of the Year 2009
Winner, ABA Book of the Year 2009
Winner, ALS Gold Medal 2009
Winner, Victorian Premier's Literary Awards 2009
Shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Prize 2009
Shortlisted for the Colin Roderick Award 2008
About Christos Tsiolkas
Christos Tsiolkas is the author of four novels: Loaded, which was made into the feature film Head-On, The Jesus Man and Dead Europe, which won the 2006 Age Fiction Prize and the 2006 Melbourne Best Writing Award. He won Overall Best Book the Commonwealth Writers' Prize 2009, was shortlisted for the 2009 Miles Franklin Literary Award and won the Australian Literary Society Gold Medal for his latest novel, The Slap. He is also a playwright, essayist and screen writer. He lives in Melbourne.
| ISBN: |
9781741753592
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| Australian Pub.: |
November 2008
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| Edition: |
1
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| Publisher: |
ALLEN & UNWIN
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| Imprint: |
ALLEN & UNWIN
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| Subject: |
Literary fiction
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| Edition Number: |
1
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