I hear the tramp tramp tramp of the feet of several burly postmen. P 150! - The thing is, I have seven - seven! books I really actually do want to read coming my way very soon.

PREVIOUSLY ON 'PAUL BRYANT READS 'THE SLAP'' Then the atmosphere turns nasty and Gary and the kid begin to squabble viciously about the breasts.Īt this point I murmered 'Thank you, Christos! At last! I knew you had it in you!', placed the novel down upon my reading desk and prepared for the traditional flinging at wall ceremony. 'They belong to all of us,' she said, laughing. Hugo dropped his nipple and looked mutinously at his father. He watched his son suck contentedly from Rose's tit. She was feeding Hugo on the couch when Gary walked back into the room. So now here on p225 we have Gary, the sex-starved husband, wrestling with his young son for control of the breasts Now one of the things about Hugo is that he's still suckling at his mother's breast, which everyone thinks is a bit gross, because he's nearly four, you know, and I was agreeing with this since every single time Hugo hove into view he was like a nipple-seeking missile aiming straight at his mum's brassiere and we would get another description of the act and everyone's reaction to the act. The scene is the grimy household of Rosie and Gary and their son Hugo who is somewhere between three and four years of age. And finally one such moment arrived on page 225.

I needed to find something definite, a line in the print where I could say I couldn't quite admit the horror of this novel to myself. you finally made my mind up for me and I have flung your horrid novel away from me in a graceless convulsion which mixed repulsion and depression in equal parts, with a dash of glee.īecause for many pages I was desperately seeking a casus belli. 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 commitment 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 twenty-first century. This event has a shocking ricochet effect on a group of people, mostly friends, who are directly or indirectly influenced by the slap. At a suburban barbecue, a man slaps a child who is not his own.

The slap book