Damon Galgut

The book is set in South Africa and begins in 1986 just as the drive to eliminate apartheid begins. It is the story of the Afrikaner Swart family and their farm located outside Pretoria over 4 decades and 4 deaths. Amor is 13 and the youngest of three children when her mother, Rachael Swart, dies of a long illness. She overhears a promise that her mother extracted from her father shortly before her mother dies: the house in which their long-time Black servant, Salome, lives should be deeded to her. Her mother and father, Manie, have had a 20-year stressful marriage. Rachael, née Cohn, was originally Jewish but gave up that religion when she married. At the end of her life, she decides to return to her Jewish heritage and be buried in the Jewish cemetery instead of in her husband's family plot. This causes much concern and angst among the family members on both sides. Amor has two older siblings, Astrid and Anton, 19, and away in the military at the time of his mother's death. He is given 7 days leave to return home but decides to desert instead. The book is divided into four chapters, one for each death, Ma, Pa, Astrid, and Anton. For each death, the situation and people are described, with Amor asking each time if the promise of the house for Salome will now be honored. Amor leaves home to travel and eventually become a nurse and is in contact with only her sister or brother, but returns for each of the deaths.… (mais)

I’ve read four or five of his novels and although I haven’t been impressed by all of them, he is undeniably talented. Galgut is a master of dread and of creating an unsettling atmosphere; this novel is no exception but I found the book more like a slow-paced thriller than anything else. The story, ultimately, is a story about losing one’s moral center and attempting to regain it—the theme applies not only to the protagonist but to his relationships and even, on a far broader scale, to the recent history of South Africa itself. His writing, as always, is top-notch but the plot struck me as overly complex and unnecessary. Galgut has shown in previous works that he can do extraordinary things with the simplest of events; that he has so overloaded the framework here is both disappointing and, ultimately, unconvincing.… (mais)