I read this book because it was part of the shortlist for the Booker Prize 2023.
In this book, we are drawn into the life of a mother, desperate and determined, as she fights to survive and protect her children. Her husband, a member of a syndicate, has been arrested, leaving her alone in this battle.

The struggle of uncertainty and survival is present throughout the story. It is a plot that all can relate to.

Before reading it, I was aware of the criticism of the writing style without quotation marks. I don't have a problem with this, but for some reason, I couldn't stick to the plot or the characters while I was reading. I wouldn't say I didn't like the book, but I expected more. It is a book worth a read, but I didn't love it as I could have expected.

Thanks NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for the advanced copy!

So ! I can see why this novel received the Booker Prize. My opinion about it is however mitigated.

First, what I liked : the topic. How a society can become so violent and intolerant, starting from a "normal" life and quickly sliding into repression. It's not like it doesn't have any echo for all of us, whether it says something about one's own country (like in my own, the rise of the right wing, violence from the police against protestants in the streets, even mutilations, or more and more lack of democracy - the unfamous 49.3...) or simply reflects what you watch on the news. This reminded me of The handmaid's tale - it's chilling. Everything was believable, your whole life falling over in a very short time, it does frighten me.

Second, what I didn't like : the writing style. I didn't care about the lack of punctuations for dialogues, it's easy enough to get used to it. What really bothered me was whole pages with just one sentence. If there had been chapters with Eilish's point of view written that way, mixed with chapters with other characters speaking with a "normal" style, I wouldn't have minded. It reinforces the feeling of claustrophobia and Eilish's loss of reference points. It echoed her father's Alzheimer. But a whole book written that way ! That was too much for me. I felt it was longer than it actually was and I wanted very much to reach the end and be done with it.

As a conclusion, I would say that it's a well written novel that conveys an important message with talent, but whether you love it or not will depend on how you react to the writing style.

Poetic prose-- Lynch creates feelings through his words. A relevant and dystopian novel told in a stream of conscious style. Lynch is very gracious to his readers and drops us right into the action and keeps us into it. My only qualm with the story was Lynch's continuous use of stream of conscious writing. It's beautiful but can sometimes be hard to follow.

Thank you NetGalley for providing readers with this title.

This appealed to me as a sci-fi tale, and I enjoyed it overall. Lynch is obviously a strong writer and this will work for a wide range of readers (of good writing).

I really appreciate the copy for review!!

Political apocalypse meets the family next door. Paul Lynch's Prophet Song attempts to address the question we ask ourselves each evening as we watch the news and witness the world melt around us (figuratively and literally): What about me? Prophet Song includes unique use of sentence structure, text formatting, and other literary devices to draw attention to the text itself, but the theme of authoritarian rise to and abuse of power remains the central point of the novel.
"A difficult novel to write..." Lynch describes his own work in accepting the Booker Prize for Prophet Song. Perhaps difficult because of the ambitious aim of the project: to make people see what is/can happen around them and care, before it's too late. Fortunately, Lynch proves equal to the challenge and delivers an engaging and stimulating narrative, effectively frightening the reader. An impressive shove to action.

4/5! I typically don't enjoy dystopian novels, but I found the themes in this one to be quite interesting, especially considering how they reflect the current political climate. While I did find the first half of the book to be slow-paced, the writing was so beautiful that it made up for it. Additionally, the pace picked up towards the end, which kept me engaged until the very last page.

Prophet Song absolutely wrecked me. I read it in one day, my insides wound tighter and tighter with every page turn. This dark and disturbing story will stick with me for a long, long time. Although it is billed as dystopian fiction, set in Ireland, I couldn't help but think of people (and countries) in which this may be a true lived experience. Prophet Song is not so much a political warning, as it is a chance to stir up deep grief and empathy for others.

Thank you #netgalley for the arc to read and review.

Prophet Song was more than deserving of its Booker Prize win. I loved it. It is dystopian, but sadly feels so true to reality. It's a different take on a story like this, that has upset some readers, but this reader found it moving, profound, and important.

What an incredibly powerful book. Ireland is now a totalitarian state, and Eilish Stack, scientist and mother of four is catapulted into a rapidly uncertain future. Her husband Larry, a teacher and trade unionist has disappeared and she struggles to comprehend the lack of answers from the state. Her disillusioned eldest son then disappears to join the rebels. Whilst her father and sister in Canada urge Eilish and the family to escape, she is determined to stay, waiting for the return of her husband and son. As the country quickly disintegrates into a war zone, and Eilish realises the chances of leaving are nearing impossible.

Written in beautifully descriptive and poetic prose, yet maintaining a constant sense of tension, we are taken on a realistic journey into the often horrifying realities of war.

Thanks you Netgalley and Oneworld Publications for the ARC in exchange for an honest review

Just not for me. The writing style is very stream of conscious, prose-y making the story and characters feel detached/disconnected. I didn’t feel pulled in by the story and was instead both bored and confused. Especially with the lack of quotation marks. I can feel the book putting me into a slump so I’m sadly DNFing

After seeing Prophet Song announced on the booker long list, and eventually seeing it win, I was lucky enough to snag a copy via @netgalley. 

The novel focuses on Eilish after her husband is taken by the police for running a union. What follows is the law in Ireland dramatically changing and it becoming some form of dictatorship style country. With strict laws against speaking out and young boys taken for conscription. Eilish is left to protect her family, which includes her father with dementia, 2 teenage son (one of conscription age), a daughter and an infant son, in this new world. She's afraid to speak out in case something happens to her family but her children view her as someone backing down. 

Eventually the rebel forces take the country back but living alongside them also isn't a calm caring environment. Mark, the eldest son, joined the forces early and she hasn't heard from him. They haven't heard from her husband since he was taken. Eilish has to control the youngest children to ensure they all make it out of this alive. 

I thought this was a really interesting novel. Unlike a lot of stories about a changing world or country there wasn't a catalyst that caused this change. It slowly but surely started to alter until eventually the Ireland they were living in was unrecognizable. I completely understand why this one won the 2023 booker. It was beautifully written with a very slow but scary story.

PROPHET SONG by Paul Lynch ~to be published December 5, 2023

I loved this 2023 Booker Prize winner!

An authoritarian government has taken over Ireland and has issued the Emergency Powers Act, granting itself sweeping powers to “keep the public order.” We follow working mom and everyday Dublin resident Eilish who, after her union leader husband is taken in for questioning and never returns, must decide whether or not to flee with her four children or remain to try to find her husband as well as care for her ailing father.

As others have commented, it is a little strange to read a dystopian novel set in the near future when the events that transpire are events that are already occurring in the present day in other countries. But I’m certain that this is the author’s whole point – to make what is happening or has happened elsewhere in the world feel like a local event to the reader, rather than a brief report on the news. Is it disappointing that an author needs to set a story in a Western country in order to encourage radical empathy? Yes, but if it helps to open some readers' eyes, then I say so be it.
Lynch is a gorgeous writer, and I didn’t mind the lack of quotation marks, although I would have enjoyed more paragraph breaks. The main character drove me a little bit nuts with her lack of inaction and naivety as the country descended into civil war, but who is to say how I would actually react in such a turbulent reality. This is a bleak story but a stunningly moving one, and very worthy of your time.

Thanks so much to @groveatlantic for the gifted advance reader copy, this is out TODAY, December 5th!

This book was captivating from beginning to end. The subject matter felt a little too close to home considering the state of the world today, but that, in part, is what made this story so intriguing. Definitely worthy of the praise it has received this year.

Note: I received a copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion. Thank you, NetGalley and publishers.

I was delighted to have a chance to read this book, especially given that it won this year’s Booker Prize. This is a literary tour de force, and it is a harrowing portrait of an Irish family trapped as their country falls apart around them, and their lives with it. This is by no means an easy read but it is one you’ll think about for years to come.

Special thanks to Grove Atlantic and NetGalley for the ARC of this book.

Wow! What a book. I mean amazing! This book grabs you from the first page and does not let go. Its no wonder it won The Booker Prize this year. I mean this is a book everyone should read and be a mandatory book for high schools.

The totalitarian dystopia in this book is so scary, so painful, so unsettling, so terrible and the truth of the matter is, it can happen in any country today. It was painful to read at times. I hope everyone reads this book. Just open your eyes at what's going on in the world today. Its downright terrifying.

However, I'm torn. A few things really irked me! Like how the writing style was. Is it prose, poem? Both? I really wish it was written in just a normal words on the page. And Eilish, scientist and wife who's husband was taken away with the new "secret police" seemed to care more about her husband than her children, throughout the whole book.

Because I don't like prose I took away a star to a 3, which is not a horrible rating in my book. I like what this book's message is, just not how the authors used that style of writing.

My god. This book is astonishing. I was gripped, moved, terrified, simultaneously. And could not stop reading. Same impact as a first reading of The Grapes of Wrath - admiration that an author can capture not just the suffering but also the endurance. A knockout.

Oh, Paul Lynch. This book grabbed me from the start and didn't let me go. I still think of Eilish daily. I think about how easy it is to slip, almost imperceptibly, into an unrecognizable government, and it frightens me. As an American, I must admit, I found this book eerie and almost too close to reality and that made it difficult. There's already talk of arrests here, charges of treason . . . . Could this book be a harbinger we're too naive to notice?

I've heard this book was inspired by Western treatment of Syrians as they fled their totalitarian government and civil war. I think this connection is brilliant. We, as dwellers in the free Western world, have seen this before, haven't we? Not 100 years ago, and here we are again. Maybe, this time, they're coming for us too.

Sadly, this is an appropriate story for the current world events. Told through the very ordinary life of a family living in a city under-seige. But this isn’t a 2nd world country or halfway around the world.
I’ve read many memoirs and fiction accounts of refugees. While parts of this story are similar, it focuses more on the motivation to stay. Or how staying wasn’t a choice until it was too late and no longer an option.
The story, I felt, was quite mild. There is no violence so it almost makes the brutality of war seem distant. Maybe that is what the author intended as that is the perspective of Eilish. She just keeps trying to keep her aging father and children fed and clothed while the world crumbles around her and she can barely notice.

It took me about three weeks to read this novel because it stirs in me all the emotions that I want to keep deeply buried. Fear, mostly. Reading this makes me sick. It´s so painful.
This novel grips your throat, chokes you, wrenches your heart from the first sentence and doesn't let go. The rise of totalitarian forces in a peaceful country is portrayed masterfully. How this impacts the daily life of ordinary citizens is shown in such a detailed and realistic way that it makes you think when. Not if, but when. This scenario can easily happen today in any given country. Look what has been happening with Hungary, Turkey, Poland. Look at the Spanish Vox party, at the Italian and Austrian far-right movements. Look at Holland.
Cherish your freedom but never take it for granted.
This book should be a mandatory read in every high school in every country.

<b>Refugees in the West</b>
<i>Review of the upcoming Atlantic Monthly Press hardcover/eBook (December 12, 2023) via the Net Galley Kindle ARC (downloaded November 15, 2023) of the Oneworld Publications (UK) hardcover original (August 24, 2023).</i>

Shortlisted for the <a href="https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/prize-years/2023">2023 Booker Prize</a>, with the winner to be announced Sunday November 26, 2023.

<blockquote><i>The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be;
and that which is done is that which shall be done;
and there is no new thing under the sun. - Ecclesiastes 1:9

In the dark times
will there also be singing?
Yes, there will also be singing.
About the dark times. - Bertolt Brecht</i> (epigraphs used for “Prophet Song”).</blockquote>

My thanks to publisher Grove/Atlantic and Net Galley for the opportunity to read this preview ARC, in exchange for which I provide this honest review. I did not think I’d get a chance to read this book before the Booker Award announcement, so I was fortunate to receive approval for the ARC in advance the North American publication.

<i>Prophet Song</i> is a dystopian novel written somewhat in the sense of Sinclair Lewis’ <i>It Can’t Happen Here</i> (1935). It proposes a fictionalized Nationalist government in present day Ireland which begins to impose an authoritarian control over the populace. In the event this means a crackdown on freedom of speech and movement especially in the case of what is seen as forces opposing the government, such as trade unions and activists.

The seeming unreality of the situation is not the point. The author’s goal is to force readers in the comfort of their Western democracies (by which I mean North American and European) to empathize and appreciate what people and families in authoritarian states worldwide undergo during government and secret police crackdowns, arrests, tortures and executions. This is often leading into civil wars, chaos and societal breakdown and a mass of refugees subject to exploitation by human traffickers.

All of this is embodied in <i>Prophet Song</i> by the example of the family of Eilish and Larry Stack and their 4 children (with a subplot of Eilish’s aging father & his dog). Further details would get into spoiler territory. I should add though that there is an aspect of experimental writing involved as it is often stream-of-consciousness, one paragraph style without benefit of speech quote marks. If you are prepared to accept the style, I think you will find that the writing is so immersive and compulsive that it will carry you along without a problem. You will identify so much with the situation and the terror that the medium will not be a barrier.

<b>Trivia and Link</b>
Read the 2023 Booker Prize Reading Guide for <i>Prophet Song</i> <a href="https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/features/reading-guide-prophet-song-by-paul-lynch">here</a>.