AustLit

'Since the first publication of Christos Tsiolkas's fourth novel, The Slap, in 2008, it has received a great deal of commercial and critical attention both domestically and, in more recent years, internationally. This popularity and rapid subsequent enrollment into the literary mainstream is, it could be argued, in large part due to the accessible prose and book-club compatibility of its core narrative trajectory, which traces a topical and thought-provoking depiction of conflicting sets of generational "family values," domestic politics, and explicit and implicit class conflict, the drama unfolding among an eclectic range of frequently unsympathetic yet believable, identifiable, and compelling characters. This narrative accessibility has been further emphasized by the production of two distinct episodic adaptations for television. The first, a successful ABC adaptation in 2011, preserved much of the contemporary flavor and cultural specificity of the original text and starred a number of familiar Australian actors including Jonathan LaPaglia, Essie Davis, and Melissa George. A much less successful US remake followed in 2015, featuring American actors in each of the major roles and, somewhat inexplicably, relocating the action from the suburbs to the brownstones of the New York borough of Brooklyn. Despite the geographic differences between the two adaptations, both retain the key narrative thrust of Tsiolkas's novel, charting the consequences of an act of corporal punishment - the titular "slap"—of a misbehaving small boy at a social gathering.' (Introduction)