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The event that triggers Christos Tsiolkas’ The Slap takes place at an urban barbecue in Melbourne. A thoroughly spoilt three-year old brat is threatening another, older child with a cricket bat. Throughout the barbecue the child’s parents have smilingly tolerated his unrestrained behaviour. A man, the older boy’s father, administers a spontaneous slap and sets in motion a series of repercussions.

The novel is told through the eyes of eight of the people who were at the barbecue and witnessed the slap. In third-person narrative, we live part of the lives of each of four women and four men ranging from a couple of students to an elderly man.

In each case, we learn of an attitude to the event, ranging from the belief that no physical punishment of a child is ever justified to the view that the slap was criminal and requires police intervention. The slap has such repercussions that it even leads one witness to decide to abort the child she is carrying.

The Melbourne we live in for the duration of the novel is a vibrant, multi-racial city and the narrative is lively and varied, ranging from the naive and sincere student angle to the self-deluding adulterous account of the wealthy shore-living middle class father who administered the slap. It is a thought-provoking, prize-winning novel.

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