Thank you Christos Tsiolkas... you finally made my mind up for me and I have flung your horrid novel away from me in a graceless convulsion which mixed repulsion and depression in equal parts, with a dash of glee. 
 Because for many pages I was desperately seeking a casus belli. Something I could put my finger on. I was a closet Slap-hater at this point. I couldn't quite admit the horror of this novel to myself. I needed to find something definite, a line in the print where I could say 
 thus far and no farther 
 On and on I read. And finally one such moment arrived on page 225. 
 The scene is the grimy household of Rosie and Gary and their son Hugo who is somewhere between three and four years of age. Hugo is the slapee of the story. Now one of the things about Hugo is that he's still suckling at his mother's breast, which everyone thinks is a bit gross, because he's nearly four, you know, and I was agreeing with this since every single time Hugo hove into view he was like a nipple-seeking missile aiming straight at his mum's brassiere and we would get another description of the act and everyone's reaction to the act. 
 Every time. 
 So now here on p225 we have Gary, the sex-starved husband, wrestling with his young son for control of the breasts 
 She was feeding Hugo on the couch when Gary walked back into the room... He came and stood over them. He watched his son suck contentedly from Rose's tit. 
 'I want some of that.' 
 Rosie frowned. 'Don't Gaz.' 
 'I do. i want some of your boobie.' 
 Hugo dropped his nipple and looked mutinously at his father. 'No. It's mine.' 
 'No. it isn't,' 
 Hugo looked at her for encouragement. 'Whose boobies are they? 
 'They belong to all of us,' she said, laughing. 
 Then the atmosphere turns nasty and Gary and the kid begin to squabble viciously about the breasts. 
 At this point I murmered "Thank you, Christos! At last! I knew you had it in you!" , placed the novel down upon my reading desk and prepared for the traditional flinging at wall ceremony. 
 ***************** 
 PREVIOUSLY ON "PAUL BRYANT READS 'THE SLAP'" 
 P 150! - The thing is, I have seven - seven! books I really actually do want to read coming my way very soon. I hear the tramp tramp tramp of the feet of several burly postmen. This book - not so much. But you know the feeling when you walk out of the shop and you get home and you just don't remember stuffing the two packs of sausages, three packs of wafer-thin Wiltshire ham and two small jars of marmite down your kecks? So here I am on p 150. I don't know how I got here or how I'm going to get out of this geyser of Ozzie soapsuds. Can there really be another 330 pages to go? 
 The Shangri-Las : 
 PB, is that a bestseller you got there? Uh-huh? Gee, it must be great reading it all day. By the way, where'd you get it? 
 Pb (dressed in black leather, channelling Mary Weiss) : I met it in the Sainsbury store - 60% off. You get the picture? 
 Shangs : Yes, we see 
 Pb : That's when I became... 
 A reader of The Slap. 
 My friends were always putting it down 
 Shangs : Down, down 
 Only good for the beach they said with a frown 
 Shangs : Frown, frown 
 They told me it was bad 
 And I knew I'd been had 
 I'm sorry I started it - reader of The Slap 
 The page 100 decision - to continue or to not continue, that is the question. 
 Well, what about this blurb on the back? This is bugging me - 
 This event reverberates through the lives of everyone who witnesses it happen. 
 Is that even grammatical? I would have thought EITHER 
 This event reverberates through the lives of everyone who sees it happen 
 OR 
 This event reverberates through the lives of everyone who witnesses it 
 No need for the "happen". The "happen" is otiose. So the blurb writer can't write. 
 But... I dunno. Maybe I'll continue. It's so long. These modern writers, they must get paid by the word. Never mind the quality, feel the width. 
 *** 
 On Goodreads they all stop and stare 
 They can't hide the sneers but I don't care 
 I think I've become a - 
 Reader of The Slap 
 (motorbike noises, fade)