When Rosie rebukes Richie, telling him that it’s wrong to hurt people, Richie blurts out that Hector raped Connie.Before The Slap, Christos Tsiolkas was the author of four novels: Loaded, which was made into the feature film Head-On, The Jesus Man and Dead Europe, which won the 2006 Age Fiction Prize and the 2006 Melbourne Best Writing Award. Rosie refuses to believe Richie’s version of events. Richie pulls Hugo by the arm, and Hugo arrives home crying. Richie tells the boy to apologize, but Hugo refuses. As Richie carries Hugo home from the park, Hugo spits at a stranger. When he sees Hector at the swimming pool, Richie is overcome with embarrassment.

While the two of them are babysitting Hugo, they find a photo album containing a picture of the young Hector. The final point-of-view character is Connie’s gay friend, Richie.

Aisha is angry, but the couple is reconciled when Hector agrees to move to a different school district. He admits to his affair with a teenager (although he doesn’t name Connie), and Aisha admits to her own infidelity. Meanwhile, Hector is having a mid-life crisis. We switch to Aisha’s point of view as she travels to a conference, where she has sex with a colleague-her first infidelity to Hector. They disapprove of the fact that Aisha has snubbed their nephew Harry in solidarity with her friend Rosie. He and his wife attend a funeral, and discuss the rift between them and their daughter-in-law Aisha. The next point of view is Hector’s father Manolis. When she gets home, Gary is passed out on the lawn. One day, Gary racially insults her friends, who ask her not to contact them again. Rosie finds herself lying to her friends and family as her life begins to fall apart. Gary, frustrated, begins to drink heavily. She is contemplating sabotaging Gary’s condoms in order to have another child because “Hugo needs a brother.” Rosie and Gary have brought a complaint against Harry before a judge, but the complaint is dismissed.

Since then, Hugo has been her whole world. At six months old, she almost contemplated walking out on the screaming baby-but this moment proved a turning point. His was a difficult birth and she struggled to attach to him. Rosie’s point of view fills us in on the backstory of her relationship with Hugo.

The slap author christos tsiolkas