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y separately published work icon The Slap single work   novel  
  • Author:agent Roger McDonald http://www.poetrylibrary.edu.au/poets/mcdonald-roger
Issue Details: First known date: 1996... 1996 The Slap
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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

    • Sydney, New South Wales,: Picador , 1996 .
      Extent: 306p.
      ISBN: 0330358405 (pbk.)

Other Formats

  • Also sound recording.

Works about this Work

`Slap' Concentrates the Senses Christopher Bantick , 1996 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 16 June 1996; (p. 22)
A Bridge of Fire Rosemary O'Grady Oobagooma , 1996 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , August no. 183 1996; (p. 46-47)

— Review of The Slap Roger McDonald , 1996 single work novel
Baptism, Death and a Lingering Fire in the Belly Debra Adelaide , 1996 single work review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 6 July 1996; (p. 11s)

— Review of The Slap Roger McDonald , 1996 single work novel
Finally, It's Firebug Finch Katharine England , 1996 single work review
— Appears in: The Advertiser , 6 July 1996; (p. 10)

— Review of The Slap Roger McDonald , 1996 single work novel ; Snake Kate Jennings , 1996 single work novel
A Dispossessed Life Ian McFarlane , 1996 single work review
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 15 June 1996; (p. C12)

— Review of The Slap Roger McDonald , 1996 single work novel
Confidence Equal to the Risk Rosemary Sorensen , 1996 single work review
— Appears in: The Sunday Age , 14 July 1996; (p. 8)

— Review of The Slap Roger McDonald , 1996 single work novel ; The Truth Teller Margaret Simons , 1996 single work novel
An Australian Laconic Thomas Shapcott , 1996 single work review
— Appears in: The Age , 1 June 1996; (p. 9)

— Review of The Slap Roger McDonald , 1996 single work novel
Explosive Aussie Treat Vicki Englund , 1996 single work review
— Appears in: The Courier-Mail , 8 June 1996; (p. wkd 9)

— Review of The Slap Roger McDonald , 1996 single work novel
Hot and Cold Running Power Julian Croft , 1996 single work review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 15-16 June 1996; (p. rev 7)

— Review of The Slap Roger McDonald , 1996 single work novel
A Dispossessed Life Ian McFarlane , 1996 single work review
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 15 June 1996; (p. C12)

— Review of The Slap Roger McDonald , 1996 single work novel
`Slap' Concentrates the Senses Christopher Bantick , 1996 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 16 June 1996; (p. 22)
Last amended 16 Mar 2018 14:06:24
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