Prophet Song
WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE 2023
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4.4 • 51 Ratings
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- £5.99
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- £5.99
Publisher Description
WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE 2023
SHORTLISTED FOR THE AN POST IRISH BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023
SHORTLISTED FOR THE STREGA EUROPEAN PRIZE
A SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
A NEW YORK TIMES EDITOR'S CHOICE
AN AMAZON TOP 10 BOOK OF DECEMBER 2023
A Book of the Year for 2023 according to the Guardian, FT, Irish Independent, Irish Examiner, Sunday Independent, Economist, Big Issue, Daily Telegraph, Irish Times and Waterstones
'A CRUCIAL BOOK FOR OUR CURRENT TIMES... BRILLIANTLY HAUNTING.' OBSERVER
The explosive literary sensation: a mother faces a terrible choice as Ireland slides into totalitarianism
On a dark, wet evening in Dublin, scientist and mother-of-four Eilish Stack answers her front door to find the GNSB on her step. Two officers from Ireland’s newly formed secret police are here to interrogate her husband, a trade unionist.
Ireland is falling apart. The country is in the grip of a government turning towards tyranny and when her husband disappears, Eilish finds herself caught within the nightmare logic of a society that is quickly unravelling.
How far will she go to save her family? And what – or who – is she willing to leave behind?
Exhilarating, terrifying and propulsive, Prophet Song is a work of breathtaking originality, offering a devastating vision of a country at war and a deeply human portrait of a mother’s fight to hold her family together.
'A compassionate, propulsive and timely novel that forces the reader to imagine — what if this was me?' FT
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
An Irish family is shattered by the rise of a radical right-wing party in this slow-burning dystopian novel from Lynch (Grace). In the near future, Ireland is governed by the National Alliance Party, an eerily totalitarian mutation of nationalist politics dating back to the Troubles. Their leaders employ a militant secret police force, which rounds up trade unionist Larry Stack after he participates in a protest march. Larry's four children assume he's been killed along with others "disappeared" by the NAP, but his wife, Eilish, is in denial and refuses to consider leaving for somewhere safer. Lynch renders Eilish's inner world with relentless blocks of page-long paragraphs, unbroken even during conversations with her father, Simon, who, in his dementia, often blurs past and present (he describes NAP "thugs" as "trouble," suggesting they are reminiscent of IRA soldiers). Some of this might be lost on readers unfamiliar with the history. Still, the momentum of the prose lends an air of portentousness to the narrative until Eilish's denial finally crumbles as she claims the body of one of her sons, who has been tortured to death, from a military hospital. Readers well-versed in the context will find Lynch's vision painfully plausible.
Customer Reviews
Extraordinarily visceral
This book, feels both terrifying and prescient t. Ireland is plunged into a dictatorship and his story follows the struggle of a family to adapt to the new reality. Pros style is immediate and claustrophobic, and put you right in the middle of the situation with them. I was not able to read it at night, as it disturbed me so deeply.
Amazing and moving.
Beautifully written, deeply affecting to the core. A story of our time about a timeless struggle of people and races through the ages! Difficult to explain how much I loved this book.