Let’s Talk About Manners & How Much They Matter.

” LIFE IS NOT SO SHORT BUT THAT THERE IS ALWAYS TIME FOR COURTESY.” Ralph Waldo Emerson     In the world of writing, we are supposed to bring the reader into our story so that they can experience whatever emotion we are portraying. This may evoke a certain level of discomfort. When was the last time you read a book  you had to stop reading because it was too uncomfortable? The Slap:A Novel by Christos Tsiolkas is getting a lot of buzz about the degree of discomfort it creates. It is a story about contemporary middle -class life centered around the act of a man slapping a child who is not his own at a neighborhood barbecue and the series of repercussions that result. But if we are uncomfortable, we can simply choose to stop reading that...