The Slap - Christos Tsiolkas (2008)

The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I had to rewrite this review, since I stalled on the second last chapter gave the book 2 stars and vowed to leave it unfinished. Ater a couple of days of recovery and self reflection I pulled myself over the smelly, drab and suburban finish line.

My first impression of this book was superficial, something I accused the book of initially. I recognized all the places and street names since I grew up in Melbourne and rolled around the northern and eastern suburbs area a bit in my 20s (I even played mixed netball a few times at the Northcote High gym) but upon reflection, I recognised myself and the people I have known growing up in Australia. The reason I hated the book so much, especially in the Aisha chapter, was because it exposes me, it exposes us, supposedly decent, nice, kind middle class Australians to our own selfishness, myopia and self-deceit.

The character development is rich, every chapter fleshes out a new confronting and uncomfortable perspective, lucidly illustrating race, gender, LGBTQI+ and generational conflict. The book is written in 2008 and is a fitting testimony to the times that predate the disturbing mass hallucination we find ourselves in in 2021. The characterisation of suburban Australia is confronting and it hurts.

The varying perspectives and some of the jarring and explicit detail are fun to begin with but become exhausting to read, I wanted Christos to give me something to hold on to, some good in modern Australia that I could take pride in. The characters that I warmed to initially degenerate as the sordid underbellies of their sad lives are revealed and the book overall just starts making you feel tired and want even a sliver of light at the end of the tunnel.

As a reader I had to come back to it, I could have walked away but that would have meant not facing up to something of myself. That's literature at is best.

The Slap makes us confront our selves, our own sometimes deceitful ways. It's not light reading, its not meant to be. It's a well polished mirror that exposes every detail, lucid and unapologetically in your face.

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