The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas is a truly excellent book. It all starts at a BBQ when a parent slaps someone else’s bratty child. The incident divides the couples involved and the book follows their relationships and their reactions to ‘the slap’. Opinion divides over whether the child quite frankly needed a good slap or whether punishment of this kind is never justifable.

Loyalties are called into question as individuals have to make choices between backing their partners, their families or their long-standing friends. Meanwhile, difficult decisions are faced all round, about whether to follow through with a pregnancy, whether to be honest about an affair, whether to confess to a childish lie with enormous consequences, and whether to breast feed a toddler until they want to stop.

It deals really well with parental boundaries and whether or not another adult should ever discipline someone else’s child (leaving aside the issue of whether discipline should ever take the form of a slap).

What I liked so much about this book is the way it conjures up a hot Melbourne summer, life in the suburbs, the day-to-day struggles of adolescence and maintaining romance and passion in a marriage. As the reader you get the chance to voyeuristically peer into the lives of each main character in turn, whilst following the stories of them all as their lives intertwine.

Somehow the TV adaptation manages to get it absolutely right and I would recommend first reading the book and then settling down to watch it on DVD.