Book 7 - The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas

A man slaps an out of control 3 year old boy at a barbeque in suburban Melbourne. The boy's mother is furious, even more than one might expect given the circumstances, and decides to take the man to court. The on-lookers have their own opinions about who is in the right and as a result, there are rifts created (or perhaps simply highlighted) in families and longstanding friendships are tested. Each subsequent chapter of the book focuses on a different protagonist, introducing us to their character and life situation. Actually, the eponymous slap doesn't play as pivotal a role in the rest of the book as one might expect, it serves more as a focus for other events and ideas.
The central conceit of the book is an interesting one, and we could all relate to the mixed feelings we experience when someone else has to discipline our child because they have behaved badly. However,the question of whether hitting a child can ever be justified wasn't really explored in any great depth. Instead, the book is more of a character study , which would be fine except that most of the characters are so deeply unpleasant it is difficult to feel any real empathy or sympathy for them. The men are vain and obsessed with sex, often with a violent side to their nature, whilst most of the women are fairly 2-dimensional or just very annoying (for example, Rosie, the mother of the slapped child). The friendship between the 3 main women didn't seem believable to most of us, given their different characters and lifestyles.
In its favour, the book is a page turner and an easy read, but overall, the consensus was most certainly a thumbs down.
However, Ulrika's butternut squash soup was delicious again  - thank you very much!