BY ANNE CROWLEY
WHAT THE EXPERTS SAID:
“This 2023 Booker winner is ‘A fearless portrait of a society on the brink as a mother faces a terrible choice’.
“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.” (goodreads.com)
MY THOUGHTS:
While set in Ireland, this story could be set anywhere, and in fact could be unfolding right now in one of several places where extremist views and political parties seem to be gaining the upper hand. And it wouldn’t be the first time – human history is evidence that this scenario is a real possibility.
As the adage goes, ‘Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely’. In this story, a newly elected party introduced a law it justified on the basis of the need to ‘restore security’ – the Emergency Powers Act. It then proceeded to dismantle the laws and protections inherent in the fabric of society.
“If you change ownership of the institutions you can change ownership of the facts, you can alter the structure of belief, of what is agreed upon … that is what they are doing.”
My quandary was with the main character Eilish, with whom I could sympathise, but whose reactions to unfolding events I found exasperating. It’s interesting to reflect on what choices we may each make in similar circumstances – though I hope we never encounter them!
The narrative is woven with a deep sense of foreboding, of threat, of fear and disintegration. As such, I found it gripping.
It is also strangely constructed with a lack of punctuation and paragraphs, making it a little harder to follow conversations and thoughts – which one reader I know found very frustrating.
This is not an uplifting book! But it is hard to put down, and unforgettable long after you’ve finished it. I’d recommend it.
