Prophet Song by Paul Lynch
2023 BOOKER PRIZE WINNER
A fearless portrait of a society on the brink as a mother faces a terrible choice, from an internationally award-winning author.
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 Eilish can only watch helplessly as the world she knew disappears. When first her husband and then her eldest son vanish, Eilish finds herself caught within the nightmare logic of a collapsing society. 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.
Reviews
'A compassionate, propulsive and timely novel that forces the reader to imagine — what if this was me?' FT
'Powerful, claustrophobic and horribly real... Lynch's depiction of Eilish is nuanced and sympathetic, and in the fiercely embodied quality of her love for her children, entirely successful.' Guardian