The Promise by Damon Galgut
Like most of the people who look at this blog, I usually read the Booker Prize winning novel each year to check what the movers and shakers on the judging panel deem a worthy literary novel. Sometimes the judges are brave enough to choose a novel just because it’s good but, too often in recent years, the cultural and political zeitgeist has directed their choices. Unwilling to offend, though, I will not attach examples to this provocative statement. Instead, I will put my cards on the table about this year’s choice - ‘The Promise’ is a fine novel and may even be read in fifty years’ time (that’s my esteemed father in law’s criterion for a potential future classic).
The plot is straightforward enough as it follows the fortunes, over about forty years, of the Swarts, a white South African family, who own a farm near Pretoria. The novel begins in 1986 and is presented initially from the viewpoint of the youngest Swart child, Amor, as she is pulled out of her boarding school to attend her mother’s funeral. The wider family and friends gather for Rachel’s premature demise due to cancer but both Amor and her older brother, Anton, feel detached from events.
Anton has been called back from his voluntary military service only a few days after he had shot dead a black woman tackling the growing unrest in the townships; the country is on the cusp of dismantling the apartheid system. His shock and guilt about this incident become bound up in his mind with some sense of cosmic justice where he perceives his mother’s death as payback for this violent act. Amor’s own confused emotional state is also linked to justice or rather the injustice of a broken promise. Unnoticed by her father, Manie, as he comforts his dying wife, Amor had previously witnessed his promise to Rachel to fulfil her last wish: to give ta piece of land and small house to Salome, the black woman who has served the family over many years and has nursed Rachel through her final illness.
With her dogged sense of justice and loyalty to Salome and her mother, Amor presses her father to fulfil the wish but finds herself rebuffed. When she solicits the support of her elder siblings, Anton and Astrid, they react differently but with little of her sense of fair play. Astrid is more concerned with her bloom of beauty and burgeoning sexuality to understand how important the promise was to her rather strange younger sister. Anton, wracked with guilt and filled with loathing for the arrogance and privilege of his family uses the promise to goad his father. He has no concern about justice for Salome, though, and quickly makes his escape not just from his family but his obligations to his army service on behalf of the white apartheid regime.
From this point on the story jumps forward in three further sections each linked to a death. This serves as a handy device to bring the Swart family back together and for Amor to continue to press the case for them to honour her mother’s promise. It also enables Galgut to look at the fate of the family as it is intertwined with post-apartheid South Africa. We see the early promise of the rainbow nation become mired in corruption, with gated communities, violence and a new elite of black politicians and white businessmen emerging.
As you can see, there is more than the promise to Salome that is explored in this novel. However, I must admit that the writing and characterisation are so good that I didn’t notice the schematic nature of the book until I had finished. I was fascinated to see what happened to Manie, his children and Salome as the years rolled by but I didn’t really put the pieces together until the end. Then it was obvious that the Swarts had been used to provide a micro reflection of the white community over the last forty years. Astrid and her husband try to maintain their place in the food chain by cosying up to the new leadership and protecting themselves against the black majority. Amor deals with her confused feelings of guilt and moral purpose by working as an AIDs doctor in the most deprived communities. Anton’s failed relationships and irresolute attempts to become a writer attest to his lack of purpose, lack of a role in his newly made country.
There are many dramatic events in this saga and they are powerfully delivered by Galgut. I particularly responded to his fluid narrative approach that saw him effortlessly switching the focus on events by jumping between characters’ perspectives and voices. Some of the most illuminating sections occurred when we saw things through a minor character’s eyes – a desensitised carjacker, a washed up former army comrade of Anton’s, for example.
I loved Bernadine Evaristo’s 2019 winner and now this – the Booker judges are on a roll.