AustLit
Latest Issues
AbstractHistoryArchive Description
The slap in the title of Roger McDonald's fifth novel is a life-giving blow delivered to a baby boy at the font of an Australian country church, over fifty years ago. Tanner Hatton Finch is granted life that day. But there seems perilously little promise in it. He grows up wild in isolated, windswept countryside, the child of misplaced artistic parents. Obsessed with fire and explosives, he lies, cheats, and steals his way through a childhood set on a course of opposition and destruction. Only one person, Ruby, doesn't turn away from him. The story of their friendship forms the centrepiece of the novel until the dramatic appearance of Kel, a boy with a talent for loyalty and a love of knives, and Tanner's life changes absolutely. Told over the span of a lifetime, The Slap reveals the redemptive power of friendship and love in a story that delivers its surprises to the very end. It is an original, disturbing novel that confirms Roger McDonald as one of Australia's foremost chroniclers of rural life and the complexities of the human heart.
(Source: back cover)
Notes
-
Dedication: For Sue.
Affiliation Notes
-
Writing Disability in Australia:
Type of disability Chronic pain, unspecified mental illness. Type of character Primary and secondary. Point of view Third person.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Other Formats
- Also sound recording.
Works about this Work
-
`Slap' Concentrates the Senses
1996
single work
criticism
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 16 June 1996; (p. 22) -
A Bridge of Fire
1996
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , August no. 183 1996; (p. 46-47)
— Review of The Slap 1996 single work novel -
Baptism, Death and a Lingering Fire in the Belly
1996
single work
review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 6 July 1996; (p. 11s)
— Review of The Slap 1996 single work novel -
Finally, It's Firebug Finch
1996
single work
review
— Appears in: The Advertiser , 6 July 1996; (p. 10)
— Review of The Slap 1996 single work novel ; Snake 1996 single work novel -
A Dispossessed Life
1996
single work
review
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 15 June 1996; (p. C12)
— Review of The Slap 1996 single work novel
-
Confidence Equal to the Risk
1996
single work
review
— Appears in: The Sunday Age , 14 July 1996; (p. 8)
— Review of The Slap 1996 single work novel ; The Truth Teller 1996 single work novel -
An Australian Laconic
1996
single work
review
— Appears in: The Age , 1 June 1996; (p. 9)
— Review of The Slap 1996 single work novel -
Explosive Aussie Treat
1996
single work
review
— Appears in: The Courier-Mail , 8 June 1996; (p. wkd 9)
— Review of The Slap 1996 single work novel -
Hot and Cold Running Power
1996
single work
review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 15-16 June 1996; (p. rev 7)
— Review of The Slap 1996 single work novel -
A Dispossessed Life
1996
single work
review
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 15 June 1996; (p. C12)
— Review of The Slap 1996 single work novel -
`Slap' Concentrates the Senses
1996
single work
criticism
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 16 June 1996; (p. 22)