“Apartheid has fallen, see, we die right next to each other now, in intimate proximity. It’s just the living part we still have to work out.” – Damon Galgut
The Promise is, in many ways, an absorbing novel. Its structure is deceptively simple: four sections, each anchored to the death of a family member, through which the slow disintegration of a family is traced.
Damon Galgut has a remarkable ability to create atmosphere. His prose moves fluidly between perspectives, often within the same passage, producing a sense of instability that mirrors the emotional and moral fragmentation of the characters themselves. It makes for a novel that is, at the level of sentence and scene, deeply compelling.
Yet, there is also a sense of absence.
Salome, who might be understood as the moral centre (or at least the moral question) of the novel, remains largely at its margins. Similarly, while the text repeatedly gestures towards the political and social realities of post-apartheid South Africa, these elements are often invoked rather than fully explored. This was particularly obvious for myself, having a superficial pre-existing knowledge of its history.
This dissonance creates a tension within the novel. It is undeniably readable, and often beautifully written, but it also feels as though something essential has been held back.
I found myself both engaged and slightly unconvinced. It is a novel I admired more than I fully connected with, which perhaps explains my lingering surprise at its recognition with the Booker Prize in 2021.