Christos Tsiolkas: The Slap
The challenge of writing in different voices
MBP: Congratulations on being longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Where were you when you heard the news?
CT: At Cove Park [artists' retreat] on Loch Long in Scotland. I grabbed a bottle of single malt, found my fellow residents and celebrated by getting hammered in the sun.
MBP: The Slap begins at a barbeque where a three-year-old boy is slapped by someone who is not his parent. The different reactions to this slap uncover complex cultural, racial, class and gender issues in suburban Australia. Did you have to think carefully about a way to weave all these things into one novel?
CT: Yes. I'd wanted to write a how we live now novel and I wanted the challenge of writing in different voices, different ages and different genders and identities.
MBP: What was it about suburban Australia that fascinated you as a writer?
CT: The suburbs are where the vast majority of Australians live. I wanted to write against the elitist assumption that lives in the suburbs don't matter.
MBP: In The Slap you write from the perspective of eight very different characters. How difficult was it to switch from one voice to another?
CT: I found in writing The Slap a real pleasure in the imagination again. If I can't play and experiment with multiple voices, if I can't convince the reader of the authenticity of those voices, then I have no right to call myself a writer.
MBP: Ari, a character from your earlier novel Loaded, makes an appearance in The Slap. Is this character of particular significance to you?
CT: Initially Ari was going to be one of the voices in the book and then I realised he didn't fit into the story I wanted to tell. He's there as a possible alter ego in the future.
MBP: In interviews you've said that writing The Slap was a pleasure in comparison to your previous novel Dead Europe. Can you explain why?
CT: Dead Europe is an exploration of the continuing legacies of racism and in particular anti-Semitism in the European consciousness. I had to be ruthlessly honest about my own bigotry, my own hatreds if you like. That ruthlessness nearly tore me apart, took me into dark places that it was a struggle to emerge from. Writing The Slap felt like swimming in the clearest, most perfect sea by comparison.
Christos TsiolkasThe Slap
