Prophet Song

By: Paul Lynch

Narrated by: Gerry O'Brien

Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins

Publisher's summary

Winner of the Booker Prize 2023

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.

©2023 Paul Lynch (P)2023 Bolinda Publishing

Critic reviews

'I haven't read a book that has shaken me so intensely in many years ... The comparisons are inevitable – Saramago, Orwell, McCarthy – but this novel will stand entirely on its own.' (Colum McCann, author of Apeirogon)

'Monumental ... You remember why fiction matters. It's hard to recall a more powerful novel in recent years.' (Samantha Harvey, author of The Western Wind)

'Prophet Song is a literary manifesto for empathy for those in need and a brilliant, haunting novel that should be placed into the hands of policymakers everywhere.' (The Guardian)

Timely

Took me to the darkness that I pray we never reach in this country. An important read for those who believe it can’t happen.

Epic/

The creative use of language served as an emotional hook. It was a universal story that hit home especially in these precarious political days.

How adeptly the reader handled the author’s style of writing to convey so perfectly this amazing novel.

Loved every inch of this most amazing novel. It’s an utter masterpiece and I could not stop reading/listening.

Superior novel, masterly written, hugely insightful

The masterful writing and insight into humanity. It is small wonder this book won the Booker Prize.

How realistic it was.

The depiction of each character — believable people, and the small details, so that you felt you were there..

Scary, sad but phenomenal

Beautiful and tragic. I was left gutted and in awe by this book. An absolute must read.

My only criticism would be the narrator. He did a fantastic job, but choosing a male narrator was an odd choice to me.

Read it or listen to it next. You won’t be disappointed.

Excellent, deeply disturbing, painful

This book engenders compassion for all war torn or oppressed people
It is very dark

Painfully powerful Tale.

A friend who recommended it called it intense. The Audible summary called it propulsive. Both right and both words fall short.

Written as if a single sentence this novel carries you along as on a violent red wave as the heroine struggles to survive in an Ireland gone mad and The Troubles rip the covers off her simple, peaceful life and toss her and her Family into a whirlpool of Totalitarian Control.

Reading it at this time of Fear that it can happen here in America magnifies the impact of her story, but Lynch’s storytelling skill has created a timeless horror tale.

Four Stars. ****

Well worth it

Phenomenal portrait of what this must be like - What to believe? Are you naive? Are you over reacting? In a real crisis sometimes every action seems as overreaction until it’s over when those same actions are found to have been inadequate. Powerful story

Incredible in every way

Must listen. Let it affect you as it is meant to. Can we even be considered living without courage?