By Peter Werner
The group mostly enjoyed Life After Life, the ambitious 600-page novel by Kate Atkinson. Atkinson’s project follows the story of Ursula Todd who experiences an endless cycle of birth, death and rebirth.
Most thought it was a hard book to get onto, disorienting at first, but develops well with vivid and harrowing descriptions of WWII London and Berlin. The ending was, perhaps, laboured.
Group members described it as “too many lives”, “Blitzkrieg Bop”, “here we go again” and “maybe fate prevails”.
July’s book is The Promise by Damon Galgut, winner of the 2021 Booker Prize. The meeting will be done on Zoom.
All Members and their Guests are welcome, RSVP to events@tattersallsclub.org.
The Promise
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.
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.
