Prophet Song

Author: Paul Lynch

Let me start by stating that this book won the Booker Prize in 2023.  This is probably the sole reason I decided to read it. While I am by no means a fan of dystopian literature, I am of the firm belief that a Booker Prize Winner must have some redeeming qualities that make it all worthwhile.

The setting is one where the Republic of Ireland has descended into totalitarian rule under the right-wing National Alliance party (NAP).  Larry and Eilish Stack have four children and Larry is a teacher who is also a key person in the trade union. He is arrested after attending a protest and simply disappears. Needless to say Eilish freaks out, but is helpless to do anything.

I don’t want to reveal all the bad things that happen after that, as it will probably ruin the suspense of the novel. The book chronicles the superhuman effort that Eilish Stack makes to keep her family together amidst the oppressive regime of the NAP.

There’s scenes of youth being conscripted into the army that are grimly described as  “After a certain age, a man grows a beard not to enter manhood, but to put a barrier to his youth”. There’s some words of wisdom as well that resonated with my experiences of the youth of today. The author declares that "Knowing how it is so that all boys grow up and pull away from home to unmake the world in the guise of making It, nature decrees it is so."

The prose seems a little grammatically off to me, and my guess is that it is because it is meant to reflect an Irish dialect of English. In describing Eilish and Bailey being driven to hospital Paul Lynch writes “seeing how she been carried forward, as though caught within some enormity of force, the body no longer at swim, but carried by the tormenting water… "

There’s also some good advice like "Sometimes not doing something is the best way to get what you want".  However, the book is just incredibly depressing. It reads like a boulder rolling  downhill, with nothing to stop it. Things just keep getting worse page after page and I was longing for something new to happen, and maybe  a change in  direction. But alas, that was not to be found. Instead I read “we have entered into a tunnel, and there is no going back, she says, we just need to keep going and going until we reach the light on the other side".

You have been warned.