Damon Galgut’s, The Promise

After a seven year hiatus, previously nominated writer, Damon Galgut, delivers an emotional and introspective look into family dynamics and the manifestations of grief. Through the lives of three south African children, Astid, Anton and Amor, Galgut mirrors the turmoil and distress occurring during the 1986 apartheid. Across four decades, numerous deaths and subtle critiques against the white, south African population, the esteemed writer dives deep into what it means to come together. 

If Galgut’s novel could be described as a ride, then death would serve as the stations or stops. The four chapters are all titled after the characters dying within that chapter, a blunt style of foreshadowing. Each death also brings the remainder of the family together again, creating yet again the ever-going conflict of whether Ma’s promises should be kept or not. The first-time death is brought into the book; it is from Rachel or Ma’s death as her daughter Amor laments her death. “No, no. It can’t be true, what her aunt has just told her. Nobody is dead. It’s a word, that’s all. She looks at the word, lying there on the desk like an insect on its back,” (Galgut, 8) using a beautiful simile and depiction of the word dead, Galgut creates an extended theme to carry through the book as more family members die. Galgut, in fact, brings the word death, dead, and die into the book as it goes on 26, 47, and 48 times total respectively.

Whether discussing the impact of generational trauma and the lineage of negative habits, like Galgut does by including characters like Ma and Pa, or the independence and courage that is needed to break free of the cycle that is embodied through Amor, Damon Galgut does not shy away from critiquing society’s sour habits.