Linda's Reviews > Prophet Song

Winner Booker Prize 2023

" History is a silent record of people who didn't know when to leave."

Prophet Song kept me up reading late into the night. It is an emotionally draining novel with Orwellian themes and scenes that propel the reader forward with the intensity of a Hitchcock film.

In a dystopian future, Ireland's far-right National Alliance Party (NAP) comes to power. To maintain order, they create a secret police with supplemental powers that strip citizens of their fundamental rights. The story centers on the impact of the new order on a middle-class Dublin family, the Stacks; Eilish, a microbiologist; Larry, an official in the Teacher's Union of Ireland, their four children; and Eilish's aging father, who is struggling with dementia.

The nightmare begins when secret police attack a peaceful teacher's rally for higher wages. Larry and other union officials are arrested and disappear. Legal due process starts to erode, and the NAP replaces people in jobs nationwide with party hacks, causing Eilish to lose her job. Lynch chronicles Eilish's struggles to keep her children and aging father safe as the nation descends into a violent civil war, and they become refugees.

At first, I found Lynch's writing style difficult to follow. There are no paragraphs, and he doesn't use conventional indicators for dialogue. Scenes proceed without interruption until a gap appears, indicating a new section's start. However, once I grew accustomed to his style, I found his writing had almost a cinematic flow that drew me deeper and deeper into the nightmare.

Prophet Song is a powerful novel as it crystalizes the trauma that so many people worldwide are experiencing. In an interview, Lynch stated that two competing sentiments motivated him to write this novel. First, he is troubled by the lack of empathy for refugees, which he feels is prevalent in the West. Lynch also wanted to explore how much agency individuals possess in times of societal collapse. He succeeds on both fronts. Prophet Song is a mesmerizing, provocative read. I highly recommend it.