Hardcover
English language
Published Aug. 8, 2023 by Oneworld Publications.
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, Larry, 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. Soon, she must decide just how far she is willing to go to keep her family safe.
Exhilarating, terrifying and propulsive, Paul Lynch's Booker Prize-winning novel is a devastating vision of a country falling apart and a moving portrait of the resilience of the human spirit when faced with the darkest of times.
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, Larry, 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. Soon, she must decide just how far she is willing to go to keep her family safe.
Exhilarating, terrifying and propulsive, Paul Lynch's Booker Prize-winning novel is a devastating vision of a country falling apart and a moving portrait of the resilience of the human spirit when faced with the darkest of times.
It starts with uneasiness, discomfort that never leaves you and is getting more intense while progressing the book. I hope I will never have to experience it outside of this book.
Thanks to the way it was written and the story combined, this book grabs you by the throat and infects you with the main character's stress that oozes out of the pages. Couldn't read this in one go, and the final 50 pages were a constant battle between reading on for the story and putting it aside because it was just so harrowing. One of those books that will ruin your day, if not your week, because it's just so good and awful at the same time.
Thanks to the way it was written and the story combined, this book grabs you by the throat and infects you with the main character's stress that oozes out of the pages. Couldn't read this in one go, and the final 50 pages were a constant battle between reading on for the story and putting it aside because it was just so harrowing. One of those books that will ruin your day, if not your week, because it's just so good and awful at the same time.
A nightmare in book form. I could only read for an hour at a time.
How a contemporary western state can collapse from the perspective of an Irish middle class family.
Deserves every prize, compulsory reading.
Categorise with Atwood.
First, I love the use of language, punctuation, syntax, in this book. It took time to acclimate, but once one does it becomes a character itself. I cannot imagine this story written in a more conventional way. At least not a story as powerful.
Second, I had no idea when I finished how much I would be thinking about it a month later. Do not get me wrong, I marinated on this book for a while after finishing (and while reading, of course), but recent events have made this story much more... pointed.
This was a difficult read and I wouldn't say I "enjoyed" it (apart from the language, which is beautiful at times, and cutting at others, and so so bleak). Do not go into Prophet Song expecting a rollicking read. It hurts, it frightens, it warns. This is all my opinion, of course, and I haven't …
First, I love the use of language, punctuation, syntax, in this book. It took time to acclimate, but once one does it becomes a character itself. I cannot imagine this story written in a more conventional way. At least not a story as powerful.
Second, I had no idea when I finished how much I would be thinking about it a month later. Do not get me wrong, I marinated on this book for a while after finishing (and while reading, of course), but recent events have made this story much more... pointed.
This was a difficult read and I wouldn't say I "enjoyed" it (apart from the language, which is beautiful at times, and cutting at others, and so so bleak). Do not go into Prophet Song expecting a rollicking read. It hurts, it frightens, it warns. This is all my opinion, of course, and I haven't explored the reviews of others much (if you see this, please let me know what you thought!). I am glad I read it.
Experience the relentless whirlwind of life-changing events. As glimpsed only on the sanitised evening news if you're lucky! Devastatingly perceptive. Prepare for the emotional impact. The wind from your lungs.
Experience the relentless whirlwind of life-changing events. As glimpsed only on the sanitised evening news if you're lucky! Devastatingly perceptive. Prepare for the emotional impact. The wind from your lungs.
