Author: Damon Galgut
Year published: 2021
Category: Adult fiction
Pages: 256 pages
Rating: 4 out of 5
Location: (my 2024 Google Reading map): South Africa
Summary: Haunted by an unmet promise, the Swart family loses touch after the death of their matriarch. Adrift, the lives of the three siblings move separately through the uncharted waters of South Africa; Anton, the golden boy who bitterly resents his life’s unfulfilled potential; Astrid, whose beauty is her power; and the youngest, Amor, whose life is shaped by a nebulous feeling of guilt.
Reunited by four funerals over three decades, the dwindling family reflects the atmosphere of its country—one of resentment, renewal, and, ultimately, hope. The Promise is an epic drama that unfurls against the unrelenting march of national history, sure to please current fans and attract many new ones.
Review: A friend recommended this book to me about 3 years ago, I purchased a copy, then it sat on my TBR shelf for 3 years. That same friend is coming to town this week and I cannot admit I didn't the book so finally did so this week. This novel won the 2021 Booker Prize.
This novel is both a story of a family across the decades and a story of South Africa itself. We follow Astrid, Anton, and Amor, siblings who aren't close--they may not even like one another--but they are repeatedly brought together to revisit their past, their relationships with their parents, their responsibilities to the Black South Africans who live and work on their farm, and the role of the local church to which their father belonged.
In some ways, their lives are normal. They work, love, have affairs, fight, and love one another. But the Promise hangs between them, Amor thinking about it over the years. Each of the family members have secrets that they keep from the others, secrets that shape who they are are and how they feel about the family and their land.
Through four funerals over the decades, the characters come together, the Promise arising each time. I won't say if the promise is fulfilled by the end or not, but this novel is an interesting study in family and nation.
Challenges for which this counts:
- Literary Escapes--South Africa
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