The Slap



The Slap is a novel written by Christopher Tsiolkas in 2008, which was adapted by The ABC into a television mini-series in 2011.

The story, set in the suburbs of Melbourne, follows the lives of a group of people after they witness a man slapping someone else's child at a party. The single act is so divisive, that a family and life-long friends are torn apart by interwoven loyalties, and the result is not pretty.

The book has won or been shortlisted for numerous awards, including the Man Booker Prize 2010, and Commonwealth Writers Prize 2009 (in the latter case it won Best Book). Recently, American adaptation has since starting to air on NBC in 2015.


 * The Alcoholic: Gary.
 * A Date with Rosie Palms: Hector in the first episode of the series has a little time to himself... and is then interrupted when his mother arrives.
 * Asian Gal with White Guy: Hector and Aisha in the book only.
 * Bumbling Dad: Played for drama. Hector is a vice-riddled man who has no idea how to manage his own children, leaving it to his wife as much as possible.
 * Domestic Abuse: The child who is slapped - the reader/viewer is left to consider; was the slap abusive, was the child's disciplineless upbringing abusive, or both? Other, less controversial examples are also present.
 * Don't Make Me Take My Belt Off: Played With: The series asks what would happen if someone else physically assaulted your child.
 * Fake Nationality: British Sophie Okonedo plays the Australian Aisha in the mini-series.
 * Family Disunion: Pretty much a staple of the show.
 * Hey, It's That Guy!: Sophie Okonedo from Hotel Rwanda is Aisha.
 * Melissa George (formerly of Alias) is Rosie.
 * The American Harry looks a lot like Sylar
 * Inciting Incident: Harry slapping Hugo.
 * Jerkass Has a Point: Harry may be a bastard, but considering that Hugo was about to hit a kid with a cricket bat, he's pretty justified in wanting to do something about it. Slapping him after the bat had been taken away might not have been the best idea, though...
 * Maligned Mixed Marriage: Hector's mother seems extremely keen to belittle Aisha by indirect means. This seems somewhat centred around the fact that Aisha is not Greek. One example is the mother hijacking the couple's already-planned holiday by making the holiday in Greece with 'family' instead, seems imbued with the implication that if only Aisha was Greek such issues would not be a problem.
 * Moral Dilemma: The drama of these is basically the point of the show.
 * Mrs. Robinson: Anouk's relationship with Rhys.
 * Race Lift: in the book Aisha is Indian-Australian, in the miniseries she is Mauritian-Australian. The seductive bloke who was Asian-Australian in the book becomes a Latino-Australian.
 * Rashomon Style: The events in the book are explored through the perspective of several different characters.
 * Papa Wolf: Harry was trying to save his son, Rocco, and had no choice but to slap Hugo.
 * Pet the Dog: His goal was protecting Rocco.
 * Serious Business: A child is slapped once. It tears a family apart. How reasonable any of this is is left to the reader/viewer.
 * Spoiled Brat: The kid who gets slapped. So, so much. At one point, he actually spits at an old man who has done absolutely nothing to him, and his mother's response is to assume said old man startled her child.
 * Time Skip: Episode 5 of the miniseries is set about two months after the previous one.
 * Would Hurt a Child: Harry slaps Hugo, but he had a reason, even his mother, Koula, agreed that Hugo had it coming.
 * Your Cheating Heart: Several characters including Hector, Aisha and Harry.