The Promise

So, for one magical afternoon, I returned to the Melbourne book club for my first meeting in 6 years. The club was my first, and I spent nearly 3 happy years with them. A lot of the old faces had moved on, but the two co-runners were still present, and it was great to see them again and get stuck into another book debate.

This month’s choice came from one of the hottest names on the current literary circuit, Cape Town’s Damon Galgut. His book The Promise won the 2022 Booker Prize so obviously came highly regarded, and I was in the unique position of having read some of his previous works, in my case The Quarry, The Imposter and The Good Doctor, all of which I enjoyed. His books have a sinister, shadowy quality, with tension always shimmering beneath the surface, and these themes continue in The Promise.

The first thing to note is the unusual writing style of the novel. It’s third-person, but an almost omniscient narrator. This is quite jarring at first, as the narrative weaves between a multitude of characters at will, and even injects some of the author’s dry humour in places. It feels like the movement in a screenplay, but it proves very effective once you get used to it.

The plot of the novel could be described as hackneyed in the hands of a less skilful writer. The Swart family come together for various funerals over a number of years and the story describes the disintegration of the family dynamic at each event. The meaning of the title was a spoken promise that was made to Salome, the black maid of the matriarch of the family, regarding ownership of a house on the property, As the years pass only youngest daughter Amor feels uncomfortable as this promise is not fulfilled, and brings it up at every gathering, much to the chagrin of her family members.

Galgut skilfully hangs the issues of the day on this theme. No South African writer can avoid talking about Apartheid, even subconsciously, and it’s problems and traumas, and repercussions form the backdrop to the novel. The dark, desolate and often threatening feel of Galgut’s novels come through in his unsentimental views of landscape, and the character of Anton, who speaks his mind on a brutal, unflinching scale, which causes lots of angry resentments and look through your fingers moments of sheer awkwardness.

This was the book Galgut has been building up too, really. Drawing everything that made his previous works so compelling and creating this epic saga of betrayal and unease. I think he’s one of the most interesting writers around, and always worth reading.