Rather a great slap sound and repetition

A "slap" The word is low. Rather a great slap, sound and repetition... In his devastating novel, the Australian writer Christos Tsiolkas describes "the butterfly effect" a correction imposed on a boy of four years by a man - which is not his father. A big hand of man is more wind than the wing of an insect...

The scene goes to Melbourne in an urban tribe of half-blood: Hector, of Greek parents, and his wife of Indian origin, Aisha, receive their loved ones for a barbecue. Are present the father and the mother of Hector, his cousin Harry and his wife Sandi, their friends and friends, the "Aussie" (strain Australians) Rosie and her husband Gary, the Aboriginal converted to islam Bilal and his wife Shamira, Anouk Jewish and her young lover Actor Rhys, two teens, Connie and Richie... without forgetting the young children and each otherbabillent and bickering...

Raised in cool baba way, Hugo, the son of Rosie and Gary, four years, is capricious and bellicose devil. When he threatens a cricket Rocco, the son of Harry bat, it fired up the shot and the strike. Two drunken rage parents decide to complain and to call the police. For or against the aggressor: camps are formed. Friendship deforms. The slap in the face opens the gates of the bitterness, desires and impulses. It is a large fracas hearts and souls that we narrates Christian Tsiolkas, successively putting into the skin of eight of the protagonists of the "drama".

The choral form of the book is clever, effective, but not new. Similarly, the writer not submissive by its style "spoken-thought" Interior monologues and dialogues. It is the radicality of his psycho-sociological analysis which fly, takes the reader to the collar, the shakes and it moves. Tsiolkas does not present his characters: when it is believed to identify with one of them, is quickly disappointed, taken back by its petty - terribly human reactions. At the beginning, it is annoyed by Rosie and Gary, the parents of the boy, and then we learn to appreciate before hate them again... Similarly, Harry, we understand the reaction at the beginning, eventually appear in a much less sympathetic light. Even the two teens - Connie, who has maintained a brief flirtation (pushed) with Hector, and Richie, the shy homo ado - are not as cool as they air: mythomanie, treason, whistle-blowing... they learn quickly adults.

The writer croque admirably this Australia mixed, smooth in appearance, ready to unravel at the slightest shock. Racism, xenophobia, homophobia, machismo, withdrawal itself religious and identity, antagonism of class... taboos and frustrations back then to the surface. "The slap" speaks of a modern world of versatile morality which impulses prevail over reason, where it is fashionable to surréagir, to exacerbate feelings and passions, to not die of fear and boredom.

Tsiolkas is also uncomfortable "in the head" of Manolis, the old Greek Patriarch, as without that of Richie, the tormented ado. His contemporary mores is perturbed, to the epic and the absurd. Happy punk (sex, drugs and rock'n roll), it is not to be nihilistic or foolishly evil. Human despair is balm love, tenderness, the instinct of life. Our wounded heroes draw in themselves the strength to heal their wounds. A slap in the face, it hurt, but it has never killed anyone.