Why? On the one hand it is a gripping saga, following the decline and fall of a white South African family over four decades.
On the other hand, through the lens of this one family, The Promise also deftly tells the story of South Africa and its troubled transition from apartheid state to multi-racial democracy.
At one point we fly into someone’s dreams. At another we dive into the feelings of a pack of hyenas and even a family dog.
In 2010 he told me it was the central, cataclysmic event of his life.
“I think a great many of us had high expectations of the future,” Galgut said.