A review by serendipitysbooks
The Promise by Damon Galgut

challenging emotional reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

 The Promise - At one level this reads as a family drama centred on an Afrikaans farming family, the Swarts. It is told in four sections spanning a forty year period. Each section is focussed on a funeral which brings the rest of the family together and updates the reader with where each character is now. South African history is present but is mostly just referenced, with the action happening off page. At this level it’s a solid novel with some interesting stylistic choices - the focus shifts from character to character, from micro to macro often within a single paragraph which can be a little dizzying at times. However, when you know a little South African history the book can be read in a much more allegorical and metaphorical way and becomes so much more. The broken promise - Rachel’s dying wish is that Salome, the family’s Black maid, be gifted the title to to house she and her family occupy, a wish her husband agrees to but never implements - that haunts the family becomes so much more. It becomes the promise of meaningful resource sharing, land reallocation and compensation in post-apartheid South Africa; the response of individual family members the reaction of different sectors of the white community; the fate of the Swarts family reflective of unmet South African potential at a national level.
 
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