What Was Promised

What Was Promised is a work of literary fiction by Tobias Hill following three immigrant families over the course of forty years, from 1948 to 1988. Each of the families, finding themselves in London after a period of hardship, must struggle to find their way in the city. Beginning in the aftermath of World War II, when London was a hollowed-out bombsite with little in the way of opportunity, and ending in 1988, the Malcolm, Lazarus, and Lockhart families find their lives intertwining in unexpected and sometimes painful ways.

The three families of What Was Promised are bound by a shared location—they all are relatively impoverished first-generation Londoners, seeking new lives in the markets near Columbia Road, in the neighborhood of Bethnal Green. This area, noted for its tenement buildings and street markets, is where the Malcolms, Lazaruses, and Lockharts first meet.

The Malcolms, Bernadette and Clarence, are originally from Jamaica. They left their island home, like so many others, in search of prosperity, but upon arriving in London found the war-addled city to be little better than their Caribbean home. Clarence fought for the British during the war and was considered a hero, but in his new home, he is known as the Banana King and wears a crown of banana leaves to promote his fruit stand. The couple has one son, Jem, who is bright and kind and loves to invent stories. Jem soon becomes much beloved in the neighborhood.



Dora and Solly Lazarus, Jewish immigrants from Danzig, arrive in London around the same time. Dora and Solly did not choose to leave their old life behind—it was destroyed, their city literally lost to history. They struggle to come to terms with the trauma they endured during the war, seeking to find pleasure in London, where they can start life anew. Solly works as a watchmaker, and Dora soon finds herself a mother after she discovers Pond, an orphaned boy playing in the ruins of one of the bombsites. Dora adopts Pond as her son, but the other children of Columbia Road don't see Pond as one of their own.

The last family, Michael and Mary Lockhart, are originally from Birmingham, but move to London seeking opportunity. The rations of the war left them desiring more in life; Michael, in particular, is greedy for the success he believes he is owed by his country. Michael had a stroke when he was a child, which plagued him with a life-long limp and a desire for easy money. Mary has a similar desire to take, though she is not as vocal as her husband. Iris and Floss are the daughters of the Lockharts—Iris is reserved like her mother, while Floss is confident and fierce, like her father.

The lives of all three families weave together in tenuous, sometimes serendipitous ways. They sometimes struggle to be around each other, but the children especially find joy in each other's company as they play in the ashen wreckage of their city. However, it is not easy to remake their lives—Michael Lockhart, the laziest and most brazen of them, soon enmeshes himself in a scheme involving local gangsters and dirty money that impacts all three of the families in ways that leave them struggling to recover.



Tobias Hill is a native Londoner of German-Jewish descent. He writes poems, essays, short stories, and novels, and has won a number of awards for his work. Hill has published four volumes of poems, a collection of short stories, Skin, which was serialized by the BBC Radio 4, and has since published a number of novels. What Was Promised was nominated for a Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize in 2015; Hill was also nominated for the 1998 John Llewellyn Rhys/Mail on Sunday Prize and won an International PEN/Macmillan Silver Pen Award.