Prophet Song
'IF THERE WAS EVER A CRUCIAL BOOK FOR OUR CURRENT TIMES, IT'S PAUL LYNCH'S PROPHET SONG... 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
Dublin scientist and mother of four who tries to hold her family together as Ireland collapses into authoritarian rule.
Eilish's husband, a teachers' union leader who is arrested and disappears early in the novel.
The eldest Stack child, who joins the resistance rather than flee the country.
A younger Stack son whose death is one of the novel's central tragedies.
A Stack daughter who withdraws emotionally as conditions worsen.
Yes. Paul Lynch's Prophet Song won the Booker Prize in 2023, making him the fifth Irish author to win the prize.
Prophet Song follows Eilish Stack, a Dublin scientist and mother of four, after her husband Larry, a trade union leader, is arrested by Ireland's new secret police as the country slides into totalitarian rule. As the regime tightens its grip and civil war breaks out, Eilish must decide how far she will go, and what she is willing to leave behind, to keep her family safe.