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Christos Tsiolkas has written from head and heart in his fifth novel, The Slap, which has won numerous accolades including the Commonwealth Writers' Prize in May. It's a dazzling display of contemporary authorship, and one imagines Tsiolkas interacted with a broad range of people in preparation for the different characters he voices so convincingly.
Despite the suggestive title, it's a sensitive piece, with its appeal cemented in the fact that Tsiolkas trusts his readers' intellect. Tsiolkas neither lifts nor lowers you into the suburban politics of The Slap, but, refreshingly, has you level with its characters; safely observing the middle-class at its most chancy.
A man slaps a child who is not his own at a backyard barbeque. Needless to say, the party is broken up swiftly as witnesses of the event are then forced to examine their own morality while reviewing loyalties of life-long friendships. The story is told through the focus of eight different characters in a narrative relay, each passing the torch seamlessly to the next whilst neatly vivisecting the perils of marriage, midlife, and ones' own mediocrity.
I loved this book. Tsiolkas has valid things to say and does it with such coarse subtlety that the ideas easily seep into the subconscious and stay. In fact, at the Auckland Writers' and Readers' festival the author told the crowd of bibliophiles that the landscape of The Slap could have been entirely different had he taken the assumption that his reader needed an interfering approach to its thematic presentation.
I did have one complaint - the sex was shopworn in parts, to the point where profanities became a little silly. Still, a friend contended the mawkishness was essential to the pathos of these sad bourgeoise, in what has been described as a "satanic version of Neighbours".
Tsiolkas is capable of writing sexual relationships well though, even within the confines of The Slap. There are some truly poignant moments from the two teenagers which reminded me of how lonely it can be growing up. Unfortunately, as we follow the rest of the cast we find adulthood fares no better.
Surprisingly I found myself sympathising with characters who I'd usually meet with instantaneous dislike and it's this point that rings most strongly: we are them. The most rewarding aspect about turning the last page of The Slap, is not the hangover of somebody else's life, but a very real thought about your own.
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