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| Book cover of The Promise by Damon Galgut |
-Brian Mendonca
It was the cover of the book that got me. Those riveting eyes, locking you in its embrace. Staring at you unafraid yet vulnerable.
And how could a cover (mostly b/w) be designed in such an impossibly powerful way? The colours oozing the tone of the book, not light-hearted, not grieving either, yet sombre to the core. In a way just leaving the lid a little open for hope.
It was supposed to be a novel of four stories. Impossible. I was intrigued at how the author could knit these separate strands. And when I hastily read that it was about four funerals I was had. I stepped out in feverish haste to the nearest bookstore and came back with The Promise, for whatever it promised.
When the meet started - for that was what it was all about, an online meet to discuss the book - I was just inside of 20 pages. The book was unputdownable. So I just pressed on reading it. I figured that if I did attend the meet, I would not be motivated to read the rest after it was done and dusted.
No. I was open to exploration. I wanted to be seduced by every word of the novel. I wanted to read it in its own time. When both of us were ready for each other.
Having lost mum and dad it was easy to relate to the book. The brilliant way Galgut presents the awkwardness at the funeral scenarios was so real.
And through it all there is one voice, one soul, one beacon, showing the torch of truth to the world - and mostly her family. Amor means love and it is love that carries this teenager through the novel into her unflattering middle age. Where the others falter, Amor opens herself to the universe.
She does not fit in. Yet she gives herself time. Confident in the thought that lightning does not strike in the same place twice.
The story is rooted in South Africa but its themes are universal. The senseless killing is something very much of this world. In the morning the house hums with activity. By the evening the house is still because someone's life has been cut short. Tragically.
Race relations simmer. Specially because Amor does not believe in keeping divisions - something for which she is castigated for.
As I breathed in the luxurious smell of freshly printed paper when I turned the page I never knew what to expect next. The way the novel was neatly quartered baffled me. Yet each section was true to its impetus. True to its calling.
I was sad when it ended. But there was nothing more to say. He had put it all down so brilliantly. Prose as prescient as this singes the mind and stays with you.
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Inspired by an online discussion of the book by the Margao Book Club curated by Savia Viegas. Pic of The Promise by Damon Galgut (Penguin, 2021). Courtesy Brian Mendonca.
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