Author(s): Damon Galgut

Fiction | Josh

A masterpiece of a family in crisis from the 2021 Booker Prizewinning author Damon Galgut The Promise charts the crash and burn of a white South African family, living on a farm outside Pretoria. The Swarts are gathering for Ma's funeral. The younger generation, Anton and Amor, detest everything the family stand for -- not least the failed promise to the Black woman who has worked for them her whole life. After years of service, Salome was promised her own house, her own land... yet somehow, as each decade passes, that promise remains unfulfilled. The narrator's eye shifts and blinks- moving fluidly between characters, flying into their dreams; deliciously lethal in its observation. And as the country moves from old deep divisions to its new so-called fairer society, the lost promise of more than just one family hovers behind the novel's title. In this story of a diminished family, sharp and tender emotional truths hit home. Confident, deft and quietly powerful, The Promise is literary fiction at its finest.    

Staff Note: It may have been published in 2021 but reading this feels like reading a classic. Over three decades, we witness the disintegration of the Swart family and breaking of a life-changing promise made to their Black housemaid. The omniscient narrator is determined to capter every character's thoughts, flicking through perspectives like swithing TV channels. Galgut is an incredible writer and this book is brilliant all the way to the end. - Recommended by Josh