This was not the right book for me to be reading during the difficulties we’re having in the US and the world.  There’s no need to invent this kind of troubles. And yet there’s Ukraine and Israel/Palestine and who knows?  This book felt just like it might be either one, but it could easily be the Republic of Ireland, the country Lynch chose for his fictional dystopia. 

Prophet Song
By Paul Lynch, Ireland 
Read by Gerry O’Brien, 8h 23m 
Raring 9 /  literary dystopian fiction 

This is the very bleak tale of a semi-imaginary Ireland taking place in the very near future when one power has overtaken the whole nation and there’s quite a lot of war-type fighting. A very authoritarian government has usurped all power in Ireland and there’s a new secret police force which “disappears” the rebels of the few opposing factions still left.  (Lynch said he was thinking of Syria when he wrote it but it certainly strikes home with Ukraine and Israel/Palestine having troubles.)

Prophet Song is the story of one family during the crisis. Eilish is the mother and a scientist by trade, her husband is Larry who, at the opening of the novel, doesn’t come home from work. There are grown children and a grand baby as well.

Eilish Stack’s 17-year old son has been called up to serve in the military. His dad seems to have disappeared already and although Eilish holds out hope, there really isn’t any to cling to according to some people she knows. This is the story of people blinding themselves because really, what else can they do?  Eilish does all she can possibly do.  

The Booker Prize 2023 judges lauded Prophet Song because it is “propulsive and unsparing, and it flinches away from nothing.” 

“Things are falling apart. Ireland is in the grip of a government that is taking a turn towards tyranny. And as the blood-dimmed tide is loosed, Eilish finds herself caught within the nightmare logic of a collapsing society – assailed by unpredictable forces beyond her control and forced to do whatever it takes to keep her family together. ” 

The style is extraordinarily powerful, so powerful that parts struck me as being almost horrific – but the violence is never really graphic. The violence is not the point. Kristin Martin at NPR did an excellent review-

And now on to lighter reading –