Cirrus@Austlit

Tsiolkas discusses Loaded, Jesus Man and Dead Europe as a kind of 'trilogy', and how they relate to The Slap. He talks about his writing process; sex and aggression in his writing; family and community in The Slap; characterisation in The Slap.

'Did you ever see him? Oh, yes, dozens of times, me and the others . . . well, not see him, but we knew he was there. I’d never go over that mountain at night. Still won’t. Rather stay at the bottom, in someone’s house. Go on next morning. Sometimes used to stay with them . . . Mac something . . .' (Introduction)

'So I’m lying in the darkness staring into space, listening to the crickets outside and trucks passing on the highway and Julia breathing beside me when—bam—it comes to me what I got to do. Fuck this, I think. I’m leaving. She breathes like a child. Frankly, I hate her ability to sleep through anything, even what we’re going through today. The woman is like a corpse after dark. It isn’t just the breathing, of course. It’s a bunch of things, wearing me down like water dripping on a rock. But the breathing always gets to me.'  (Introduction)