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 on to 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. Prizes: Winner of Commonwealth Writers' Prize Best Book - SE Asia and South Pacific 2009 and Commonwealth Writers' Prize Overall Best Book 2009 and Nielsen BookData/ABA Book of the Year Award - Booksellers' Choice 2009. Shortlisted for Australian Literature Society Gold Medal 2009 and Miles Franklin Literary Award 2009 and ABIA Australian Literary Fiction Book of the Year 2009. Author Biography: Christos Tsiolkas is the author of three 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 is also a playwright, essayist and screen writer. He lives in Melbourne. | 
