I was delighted when a proof of Paul Lynch’s Booker-longlisted Prophet Song dropped through my letter box. I’d been so impressed by his novella, Beyond the Sea, that I’d included it on my 2019 books of the year list. Set in a near future Ireland in the grips of an increasingly authoritarian regime, his new novel follows scientist Eilish Stack whose husband never returns from his appointment with the security services.
All your life you’ve been asleep, all of us sleeping and now the great awakening begins.
Larry is deputy leader of the teachers’ trade union, about to stage a protest march. When late one night the Garda National Services Bureau knock on the door of the family home it is Eilish who is more unsettled than Larry, urging him to comply with their request to attend an appointment from which he never returns. Eilish is left to look after their four children, the youngest an infant, the oldest about to turn seventeen. She’s concerned about her father who lives across town whose dementia is in decline. Eilish finds herself sidelined at work, struggling to cope with her father’s needs and her children’s defiance and anger at their father’s disappearance. Her sister, long since emigrated to Canada, urges her to take the children and get out but Eilish continues to hope that Larry will return. Each new infringement of liberty is met with disbelief followed by a resigned acceptance. As the regime becomes increasingly draconian, civil society begins to break down, armed insurrection following in its wake. Meanwhile the world looks on.
The street in early light, the checkpoint empty but for a youth who stands alone at the junction and looks as though he is awaiting command to place this weapon down and go to school, a Toyota Land Cruiser slowing past.
Lynch’s novel is one of the darkest I’ve read for quite some time. Told from Eilish’s perspective, there are no paragraphs, no speech marks, to break up this grim narrative yet I felt compelled to continue reading it. It’s relentless and exhausting which is just as it should be, the tiniest of glimmers of how it might feel to be in such a situation. Eilish often wakes from vivid nightmares into an even more nightmarish reality. Her father has moments of chilling lucidity about what is happening to his country. Her plight and that of her family is all too believable, uncomfortably familiar from the news with its reports of conflict zones, political oppression and tragic stories of refugees drowning. Ukraine is the current horror almost on our doorstep, but it was Syria and its tyrannical regime that came to mind. Eilish and her family are people like you and me, dear reader. I can sit and read Lynch’s extraordinarily powerful novel in my comfortable home without fear of a knock on the door but it does no harm to be reminded that democracy is a fragile and precious thing.
Oneworld Publications: London 9780861546459 320 pages Hardback
This sounds as if although dark, it’s an important book to read for the reason you advance in your last sentence. It also seems as though, technically too, it might be hard to read until you get used to the style. Nevertheless, a must-read.
A spot-on assessment. It’s a style that takes some getting used to but it’s extraordinarily effective. This was one of my Booker wishes but not one I expected to come true. I’m delighted it did.
I was numb on finishing it Susan. I still have my review to write. It’s a shocking & powerful reading experience
A brilliant and brave novel. All the more powerful for you considering its setting although the theme is sadly universal.
This sounds so powerful. As you say, it’s important to be reminded that liberties are so fragile.
A hard read but an essential one, I think. Hoping to to see it on the Booker shortlist.
It’s next on my pile of non-review copies! I can do dark and no paragraphs.
I just read Study for Obedience off the Booker list – and found that very disappointing – very navel gazing.
Good idea to read the Lynch while the sun’s out. I was pitched Study for Obedience but it didn’t quite appeal. The only other titles I’ve read off the list are the Sebastian Barry which is superb and Western Lane which is good but no match for either Barry or Lynch. Have you read any others, Annabel?
And getting ever more fragile, it would appear! This sounds like a powerful look at what it must be like when all the freedoms start disappearing.
Sadly, so. Brave choice for the Booker judges and a brave book. I’ve been pleased to see how much attention it’s getting.
This sounds very unsettling (since it’s all too possible) and powerful, and one I would like to read at some point!
Best read when feeling cheerful but I did finish it thinking it was essential reading. A good Booker choice.
I can handle no paragraphs, once the stride of reading takes hold, and this sounds good and important. It’s on the TBR list and your review makes it move up. Also, I’m glad to read here in the comments that Study for Obedience isn’t popular. I’m not inclined to read it either. This Other Eden is quite good.
I thought this was a brave Booker choice. Thoroughly deserving but, I suspect, one that readers may turn away from, particularly in tough times. Hoping it will get over the next hurdle. I’m glad I turned Study of Obedience down, now!
I like it when a stylistic choice suits a narrative and it seems like this story just pulls you through and through, so you’d not want to get slowed down by a paragraph break.
It certainly adds to the claustrophobic feel of the narrative, Marcie.
I remember you including this on your Booker prize wishlist, so it’s good to read your review. It sounds remarkably powerful – and, as you say, there are resonances with recent horrors in Syria and Ukraine. I hope it makes it to the shortlist.
It wasn’t a wish I’d expected to be fulfilled. I thought it might be a little to dark but I’m pleased to have been proved wrong. I’d love to see it go further in the Booker stakes.
I was intruiged by this when I was looking up all the titles on the booker list. It does sound very compelling, and I can see how the structure intensifies that.
It’s very effective although, as I was warning a friend earlier this week, it is gruelling.
I finished the book almost two weeks ago and still keep thinking about it and Eilish . It is a frightening thing to actually experience daily what Orwell must have had in mind on another level. This is how we attempt to live when we have lost control over our lives. I’m in the US and fear for our future, more so having read this excellent book.
I thought he captured the relentless exhaustion and impotence of such a situation painfully well. These are not the best of times, sadly.