Prophet Song is on the shortlist for the Booker Prize, so I wanted to read. Paul Lynch portrays a not-so inconceivable Ireland that has been taken over by an authoritarian government. The book begins with two agents stopping by Eilish's house, wanting to speak with her husband who is a leader in the trade union. Her husband is eventually taken into custody and she has no contact with him, while she tries to keep her four children safe and calm. The situation gets worse and her eldest son leaves to join the rebels. The book follow her attempt to protect her children and her father who is becoming more affected by dementia as the country devolves into chaos and violence, with more and more restrictions being placed on those who have stayed. Because this book is so bleak, it was difficult for me to appreciate the writing because I sort of just wanted to crawl away from it. There is no reprieve and Eilish has no real good decisions. The reader needs to be in the right headspace for a book like this. These dystopian novels are a challenge to read these days considering the rise of authoritarianism in the world.

Thank you to Grove Atlantic for the advance reader copy in exchange for honest review.

Without doubt, this is the easiest 5-star review I've given all year: Prophet Song is an absolute, outright masterpiece, undoubtedly a classic-in-the-making - an unsettling, forceful, and (although I often roll my eyes at this word) *timely* piece of fiction, one which seems to resound with the troubling chime of truth.

Set in a kind of alternate, dystopian Ireland (although one which appears not too distant from that of our present), Lynch's prose unfurls in a relentless stream, a stylistic choice which might at first feel confusing or unpolished - there are no speech marks, for example, and paragraph breaks are few and far between - but is in fact a fitting form for the narrative itself. This kind of tyranny does not come to be quickly or cleanly; it is not plain to see until it is far too late, until the freedoms that once seemed so secure have long been snatched away. Like a prolonged episode of sleep paralysis, the family at the centre of this story find themselves frozen in the dark, able only to watch as wickedness pricks it thumbs and steals its way towards them; 'history is a silent record of people who did not know when to leave' writes Lynch, as a relative pleads with Eilish (the mother, wife, and main protagonist of the novel) to flee, quite early in the conflict, but even then, perhaps, it might have been much too late.

As lyrical as it is listless, at times almost detached; as tender as it is unflinching, what Prophet Song offers is a stark reminder of a grim reality: the wars we watch unfold from the comfort of our homes, the visions of terror we scroll through, mindlessly, on our morning commutes, or flick past in the newspaper are not as far flung as they may seem; this novel is a mirror, and objects in mirror are often closer than they appear.

Thank you to NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for this ARC ebook!

This is a tremendous and important book. While I initially had issues with the way in which Mr. Lynch punctuates dialogue, I completely understood the rationale for it as I progressed through the novel. It would be so easy to do a novel like this badly, but Lynch does an excellent job depicting the humanity and relatability of his characters. It is ultimately a heart-breaking bur significant novel. I loved it and have recommended it to several friends.

A fictional dystopian past for Ireland that isn't quite clear that it's fictional, given that most readers outside of Ireland won't know the history of that country. Anyhoo, premise sounded intriguing - until you realise it's mostly about a wife/mother fretting, day in, day out. So boring. Couple that with flat prose and nothing really being said and you've got one helluva weak novel. Dull stuff - couldn't finish.

Few books I have read have overwhelmed me with as much dread and despair. As pages turn the knot in my stomach grew and grew until my entire chest was bursting with uneasiness. Again proving the power of the novel, Paul Lynch transports the desperation and terror of a tyrannical government clamping down on its citizens out of third-world countries and takes the narrative to a modern Ireland. We watch as survivors of terror flee their embattled country and the book deeply resonates with empathy for emigrants just trying to find a safer place to live.

Eilish Stack is our protagonist in this modern-day dystopia and we wallow in despair with her as she is forced to make impossible decisions over and over again. Her husband has been disappeared, her father is deep in the throes of dementia, and her eldest son is about to graduate into a medical studies before life is upended and he is forced on the run. Back at home, Eilish must watch over Molly, Bailey, and Ben, who is only a toddler and forced into this horror. As her world dissolves around her, Eilish will find out that what sacrifices she is willing to make, and learn whether or not she is even capable of making those decisions. A heart-breaking and brutal read.

If I've learned anything in all my years of reading, it's that Irish authors have a way of reaching out into the depths and pulling forward the most compelling, painfully articulate narratives about our existence as human beings on planet earth.

I was unacquainted with Lynch's writing prior to being granted the ARC for Prophet Song, but I was compelled by the synopsis. We find ourselves in Dublin, amidst a right-wing backlash and insurgent totalitarian government. Our main character Eilish, is forced to navigate a series of impossible decisions after her husband disappears during a demonstration. Eilish's father is succumbing to dementia and she is tasked with taking care of him as well as her four children on her own.

There is a lot going on stylistically her that really makes you feel as if you're in Eilish's shoes. I don't typically enjoy prose that plays with form, and I tend to lean away from writing without breaks but everything Lynch does here feels important and necessary to the narrative.

I will be thinking of this story for weeks and months to come.

<b>SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2023 BOOKER PRIZE</b>
4.5, rounded slightly down. I could not stop reading this over two days, and its shocking images of violence and torture lingered in my mind and disturbed my sleep. This was immersive kitchen-sink realism, but also chillingly horrifying and relentlessly tense.

Lynch creates empathy for survivors of state terror and civil war by transplanting the horrors of Syria and Yemen to a quiet upper-middle-class street in contemporary Dublin, where the casualties and survivors are people like us. All of the exposition occurs in passing conversations between characters, but the outlines are vividly clear: a democratically elected far-right ethnonationalist regime has abolished civil rights, disappeared dissident elements, and massacred peaceful demonstrators, silencing civil society and infiltrating schools and workplaces. An organized resistance movement mounts a stalled offensive against the regime, turning the divided city into an active warzone, pounded with airstrikes and patrolled by paramilitaries.

Eilish, a 40ish microbiologist working in biotech, is raising four children with her trade unionist husband Larry, and taking care of her increasingly demented father. Aware of the increasingly perilous political situation but tied down by family obligations, she misses multiple opportunities to flee with her family while she still had a chance. As her husband is disappeared after a protest march and her teenaged son leaves to join the resistance, Eilish goes to increasingly heroic and horrific lengths to hold her family together through escalating violence and unimaginable trauma.

<i>Thanks to Grove Atlantic and Netgalley for giving me an ARC in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.</i>

Courageous, deeply disturbing, and chillingly representative of contemporary times, Paul Lynch’s Dystopia makes for a tumultuous read. Prophet Song with shades of 1984 and The Road punctuating its pages, is set in the modern Republic of Ireland, which unfortunately finds itself in the malevolent grip of a totalitarian regime. The repressive establishment is the result of the National Alliance Party (NAP) taking control of the nation and putting paid to civil liberties and constitutional rights of its citizens. Emergency legislations are passed bestowing untrammeled powers to the Garda Síochána and to an outfit called the Garda National Services Bureau (GNSB) – basically the Irish answer to the Statsi.

The protagonist in Lynch’s story is Eilish Stack, a microbiologist, a mother of four and wife to Larry Stack, the deputy secretary general in the Teacher’s Union of Ireland. On a bleak and wintry night, two GNSB personnel manifest themselves at the doorstep of Eilish’s house looking for Larry. Within a few days following a teacher’s march, Larry disappears into thin air, vanishing without a trace.

The whole might of the GNSB and the NAP is felt by Eilish in incremental doses of agony. While futilely petitioning the government for the release of her husband, Eilish is also required to tend to her aging father who requires constant care due to a combination of a degenerating memory and an obstinacy to live all by himself. Despite his deteriorating mental condition, Eilish’s father wisely counsels her to depart the country with her children in tow to the safer confines of Canada where Eilish’s sister Áine is a citizen. Eilish however pays scant regard to such advise still hopeful of her husband’s return.

Things come to a heated stand when a rebel insurrection movement takes root and Ireland is racked by an internal civil war. Military aircrafts scream across the sky depositing remorseless missiles at rebel strongholds while a constant state of surveillance identifies rebel supporters before whisking the unfortunates away, first to unknown centres of detention, and ultimately the morgue. Mark, the seventeen-year-old first son of Eilish soon enlists himself in the rebel cause, much to the chagrin of Eilish and goes incommunicado.

Áine keeps imploring Eilish to join her in Canada. “History is a silent record of people who did not know when to leave,” Áine reminds her stubborn sibling. Even as rations run out and the electricity is completely disrupted, Eilish resolutely sticks to her guns and stays put in a positively dangerous and frightening atmosphere.

Lynch’s Eilish is one of those millions of helpless, harried, and hapless individuals whose predicament is broadcast to us through the lens of a vulturine media which for the sole and dastardly purpose of embellishing its TRP ratings is more than delighted to desensitize the feelings of the oppressed. From the fortunate comforts of our living rooms, we are provided a sneak peek at nauseatingly regular intervals of myriad atrocities being committed in various corners of the globe. Ceausescu, Pol Pot, Rafael Videla etc have all resorted to unspeakable horrors in systematically ripping out the heart of the social fabric in their respective nations.

The fact that Prophet Song does not contain any paragraph breaks means that sentences that are virtually jeremiads sometimes run the entire length of a page. There is a conscious and deliberate absence of speech marks for dialogues and speakers are not provided a new line. Such fragmentation makes the narrative even more eerie and elegiac.

Eilish battles both external circumstances and internal demons as she engages in a fierce and unforgiven fight to protect her family. Her undying love for her children is forced to undergo involuntary stress tests as her own offspring question her decisions and thoughts. The reader is at times driven to the edge of exasperation as she almost flings the book at the closest wall yelling “can’t you see Eilish that it is in the best interests of the family to pay heed to what your own father and Áine are imploring you to do?” But then again if she was to be so compliant, she wouldn’t be Eilish, and the world wouldn’t have its Prophet’s Song.

At the time of this review Prophet Song has slid itself into the shortlist for the Booker Prize 2023. It took Lynch four long years to write it. In his own words, “Four long years it took to write, through pandemic and normality, through Long Covid and health. My son, Elliot, was born just before I began to write, and by the end, he was riding a bike.”

I wouldn’t be one bit surprised if the Lynch was to progress from being a shortlisted author to the fifth Irish writer to have won the Booker, on the 26th of November 2023. Best wishes to him and the book!

Prophet Song is published by Grove Atlantic and would be available for purchase beginning 12 December 2023.

Thank You Net Galley for the Advance Reviewer Copy!

The Prophet Song for me read like a novel where the style overpowered the idea. And that only really works when you like the style. I categorically did not care for it. The author writes like he’s never met a space of the page he didn’t want to cover in words. It’s all one endless paragraph after another, flowing into a narrative so dense and chewy, it tends to distract from the plot.
And okay, objectively, I kind of see why he might have done it: it does create for a certain kind of harrowing urgency that reflects what the characters are going through in the dystopian Ireland he has created. And the writing itself is actually very good, descriptive, emotive, etc. But it’s just too overdone. Didn’t work for me. User mileage may vary.
Definitely a divisive sort of novel, the kind readers will either love or hate. Critics will likely love it. It was already shortlisted for Booker. Basically, if the first few pages work for you, the rest of the novel likely will too. Me, I was just being a stubborn completist about it. To be fair, it read fairly quickly for its size, but failed to wow. Thanks Netgalley.

I had high hopes for this, but unfortunately didn't feel any of the unbearable tension others were so gripped by... I am not sure why...

It could very well be the criticism that some GR-friends raised: just placing a fascist regime in 21st century Western Europe doesn't all of a sudden make it worse or eye-opening. I happened to be watching the excellent BBC documentary 'Once Upon A Time in Northern Ireland' in parallel and the testimonies of the families of the disappeared were so powerful that the book just pales in comparison.

But it was also much too slow for me - very little happens in the long middle section of this book. I guess the idea is to build up tension, but if you don't feel it then that doesn't work. The writing is good, but a little too obviously effect-driven.

2,5

I'd like to express my gratitude to the publishers for providing me with a copy of "Prophet Song," a Booker Prize shortlisted novel. They granted me access when since I came back at NetGalley, I started with a blank slate in terms of statistics.. In this review, I'll highlight both the positive and negative aspects of the book. I won't focus on the plot, since it's been done in many reviews and YouTube videos.

"Prophet Song" is undeniably a beautifully written novel, that aligns with its Booker Prize nomination. The prose captures an atmospheric quality, immersing readers in a foreboding ambiance. The evocative language and the book's ability to set a haunting tone are noteworthy.

However, despite that, I found it challenging to connect with the characters, particularly the main character, Eilish. Throughout the narrative, even during her most trying experiences, I felt a notable detachment, like an observer rather than a participant in her journey. This lack of emotional connection impacted my overall engagement with the story. Additionally, I couldn't help but notice similarities to other Booker Prize-nominated works with a similar theme. In comparison, those other books executed the theme more effectively, which somewhat diminished my enthusiasm for "Prophet Song."

In conclusion, my assessment of "Prophet Song" leans towards average primarily due to my personal reading experience. Nevertheless, I acknowledge the book's recognition on the Booker Prize shortlist, I am sure it's there for a reason.

Thank you once again to the publishers for allowing me the opportunity to read and review "Prophet Song."

“the end of the world is always a local event, it comes to your country and visits your town and knocks on the door of your house and becomes to others but some distant warning, a brief report on the news.”

“She whispers to him though there are no words for a child this age, no explanation for what has been done and yet what the child will never recall from memory will always be known by him and he will carry it as poison in the blood.”

From: Prophet Song by Paul Lynch

Booker longlist (and now shortlist) #10 aka
Booker Paul #3

I am sure most people know that this is the frightening tale of a dystopian Ireland, where the government, after some crisis (not further specified), has passed an act that gives the Garda extended powers, leading to countless vanishings of ordinary citizens and basically turning Ireland into a Fascist state.

And this transformation, the crumbling of society with an acceleration of terrifying events, is happening while you read. It is a propulsive read, even though the story is told entirely from the perspective of one woman and her family, but this oppressive, claustrophobic interiority makes is so apt for the horrible situation they’re in. The way Lynch is able to portray and make you physically feel that atmosphere of tension and despair, is very admirable.

I did feel that after a while it fell a little flat. Yes there is a, many commented on, very sad and pivotal moment in the book, but many of the events leading up to it, felt a little contrived. I also got annoyed with the many times Lynch feels the need to literally mention, or let a character point out, that it’s hard to know when to leave in a situation like that (the most quoted line from this book is only one of its many examples).

I do think it was an interesting way of showing the reader that yes it can happen to you too - and I won’t deny that it captivated me - but somehow the fact that it was dystopian with events actually happening in the world today, made me uneasy and I think that the numerous examples of novels or memoirs about the struggles of refugees from totalitarian regimes with actual events can be more powerful.

Thank you @netgalley and @groveatlantic for the eARC!
📚 📖💙

#ProphetSong by #PaulLynch
(Photo borrowed with permission from @thebookerprizes #thebookerprizes thank you thank you!)
It isn’t very often that a book truly instills me to the core with a sense of personal horror… but this one did… in an amazingly immersive tale, Paul Lynch took me to Bonny Ireland, the place where I imagine green rolling hills, dramatic cliff sides, homey pubs with smiling half-pissed Irishmen who welcome me & mine for a friendly pint…and takes this and makes it a place of paranoia, desperation, fear, anguish, and claustrophobia… to name a few. It definitely was a cautionary tale of how your country is only your country for as long as it’s people in power decide that you are it’s citizen. It reminded me so much of how people describe the beginnings of Nazi Germany, and how the Jewish people (too many) stayed and figured it would all blow over (not soon enough). It is a story of Ireland becoming like a fascist or police state, whatever you want to call it, it was a freakin nightmare. One in which a simple opinion or relative could turn you into an enemy of the state. One in which you no longer have of the rights, freedoms, or privileges you assume as a citizen. This story chilled me, and made me extremely anxious. It propelled me through with from beginning to end and on top of it having sentences that were surreal and poetic as well! This is amazing writing, I am definitely 💯 propping this up as my personal vote for #winnerofthebookerprize !
@groveatlantic and @netgalley thank you SO much for providing this e-arc for review, I’ve already preordered it and will do another post when I have the actual book in my hands. I recommend everyone read this book and remember that this is one of the places that extremist attitudes can take us! #allHopes against this although I’m sure someone is experiencing this somewhere in the world, may it cease forever!
#lovethyneighbor #anxietyread #cautionarytale #bookreview #bookerbook #favoritereads

As I began reading this novel I thought, I will like this book. I like the family. I like the writing. A nice Irish family, father a teacher, involved in the teachers union. Mother a scientist. A boy and daughter in high school, another preteen son, and the baby. A father, living alone, becoming senile.

First, there is some trouble with the state about the union. They have the right, father says. People begin to disappear. The National Guard becomes the new law. The father disappears. The family is targeted. The teenage boy is called up for national service. The daughter is angry, depressed, withdrawn. The preteen boy wets the bed. The mother is left trying to keep the family together, loses her position. The water is brown. Food is scarce. The son joins the resistance. War envelopes the country, the town, the neighborhood. The younger son is wounded.

No country comes to their aid. People become refugees, paying exorbitant costs to be secreted out of the country.

It is terrifying, reading this progression from freedom to fear.

The long sentences, the lack of quotations and paragraph breaks propelled my reading, the story rushing at me like a freight train I could not get off if I wanted to, the sickening, increasing awareness of the horror described too real, too possible, enmeshed in this nightmare that disturbed my dreams. There was no let up, every catastrophe followed by new loss, every hope crushed.

These people did not believe it could happen there, in a land of law, then watched it happen. It happened before and will happen again. And that is what is truly terrifying.

Thanks to the publisher for a free book.

My heart was in my throat for this entire book. I could not put it down. I simultaneously sympathized deeply with our protagonist, Eilish, and found her infuriating. But also that was the point. Eilish finds herself in slow pot of boiling water, a government seizing control and power through an increasing rigid totalitarian regime that is meet by the rebels who in turn go mad with power. At first I found the prose difficult, I wasn’t sure if it was my ARC or if Lynch truly didn’t believe in conversational punctuation (it’s the latter it turns out). However, this prose was the reason I was able to ‘stomach’ the atrocities in this book. So many moments, tender and horrific. This book has destroyed me and for someone who has run the gauntlet of ‘power-hungry-corrupted- government-books’ that is no easy feat.

Thank you NetGalley for my review copy.

I was drawn in by the blurb, so much so that I broke my self imposed rule of not reading anything on the Booker prize list. Unfortunately this was not the book to prove to me that my rule was wrong. The characters and the story was fine, however the verbose prose, lack of punctuation and pace meant that I could not maintain my interest. So all in all, in the future I must maintain position as a literary philistine and avoid the Booker list.

Prophet Song is an urgent and timely novel that does not at any point sacrifice craft for relevance. Lynch’s prose is as deliberate and haunting as the tale it unravels, and the choices in form and style only add to the novel’s overall affect of threatening overwhelm. Thinking of the way that rising fascism and eroded civil liberties encroach gradually so as to get you used to their arrival, much like the fabled frog in a boiling pot of water, Eilish thinks to herself, fairly early in the novel, “All your life you’ve been asleep, all of us sleeping and now the great waking begins.” That is the feeling this book evoked in me, what I think it is working very hard to evoke in every reader. I keep seeing it compared to Cormac McCarthy and Atwood and Orwell, and I do think those latter comparisons are apt for how well-realized the dystopia here is, but McCarthy is the closest overall for the way that form marries style (and for the darkness that runs through the book; he is the only comparison made here or elsewhere I would be shocked to hear Lynch disavow as an influence). There is a strangeness and musicality to certain sentences, like this, the second in the whole book: “How the dark gathers without sound the cherry trees.” To me, there is more the feel of literary modernism to these sentences than anything else—I hear Dylan and Woolf both in them, and of course Beckett, even if it’s not a deliberate echo. It may be more that Lynch is just as fascinated with and as determined to push language as they were. All of this comes together to create a powerful, claustrophobic novel, both nightmarish and beautiful. I’m absolutely not surprised it’s on the shortlist for the Booker—I’m now hoping it wins the whole thing.

This book had me holding my breath for the majority of it. At first I found the lack of quotation marks confusing, but after some analysis found it to capture the breathlessness associated with the plot. This book was truly scary and page turning. I recommend.

"Prophet Song" by Paul Lynch is a haunting and timely novel that delves into the darkest corners of a dystopian Ireland on the brink of tyranny. Longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2023, this book offers a thought-provoking exploration of a mother's resilience and the lengths she will go to protect her family.

Set against the backdrop of a crumbling society, the story follows Eilish Stack, a scientist and mother of four, as she faces the chilling reality of her country's descent into authoritarianism. When secret police officers arrive at her doorstep to interrogate her trade unionist husband, Eilish's world begins to unravel. Lynch masterfully portrays the atmosphere of fear and uncertainty that pervades this dystopian Ireland, creating a setting that feels both familiar and nightmarish.

Eilish's character is the heart of the novel, and Lynch paints her as a complex and relatable figure. As the world around her crumbles, Eilish grapples with difficult choices, making sacrifices to protect her family. Her journey is a testament to the strength and resilience of a mother's love, and readers will find themselves deeply invested in her plight.

The prose in "Prophet Song" is both lyrical and stark, capturing the emotional turmoil and bleakness of the story's setting. Lynch's writing immerses readers in this dystopian world, making it impossible to look away from the unfolding chaos.

This novel is not just a gripping dystopian tale but also a powerful commentary on the fragility of democracy and the consequences of unchecked power. It raises thought-provoking questions about how far one would go to safeguard their loved ones in the face of oppression.

"Prophet Song" is an exhilarating, terrifying, and deeply intimate novel that offers a chilling glimpse into a society in turmoil. Paul Lynch's storytelling prowess shines through in this work, leaving readers both haunted and moved by the unforgettable narrative.

This story begins, more or less, with an election, a neo-Fascist government is elected, and Ireland is in upheaval. People begin to disappear. One of those is a trade union leader, a husband who is arrested, and simply ‘disappears.’

This story is mostly revealed through Elish Stack’s thoughts, whose world - along with many others - is falling apart after her husband’s ‘disappearance’, and soon after that her teenage son will also disappear. Without her husband and son, she is stretched thin having to be the sole provider and caretaker for her other three children, along with a father with dementia who needs looking after, as well.

The country is soon falling apart, as well, and the families that surround her hide inside their homes. It becomes difficult to determine whose side others are on, and so people become wary, and their distance grows from one another.

This was a heartbreaking read, but also, unfortunately, believable. When one person can have a book automatically banned in a state, when the chorus of those who chanted ‘Hang Mike Pence’ is still remembered for not bending to the desires of others, how difficult can it be to believe?


Pub Date: 12 Dec 2023

Many thanks for the ARC provided by Grove Atlantic, Atlantic Monthly Press