Haven't been able to stop thinking about it all week. It's just such a harrowing book, utterly shattering.
If you haven't heard about it, it's set in a near-future Republic of Ireland and follows Eilish, a scientist who is married to Larry, a teacher and the deputy chairman of a trade union. Ireland's government has recently been seized by a fascist party who have suspended the Irish constitution using new "emergency powers". One day, Larry is visited by the police. Angered, he attends a protest. Then he disappears. The rest of the book follows Eilish trying her best to hold her family together as her country plunges further and further into madness.
I know this book didn't work for some people because of the writing style (it's written in long, often run-on sentences with no paragraph breaks, kind of reminiscent of Samuel Butler or James Joyce) but that only serves to up the persistent feeling of anxiety and dread that grows throughout the book.
I would struggle to recommend it to people as it is very heavy, but I think it's important reading for the times we're living in all the same.
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Reading this book was a prolonged slow creep of claustrophobia and despair, and I understand the “payoff” of where the story ends isn’t everyone’s favorite. It’s a bleak story that is tough to get through at several points.
It was terrifically-written though, and it’s stuck in my head for weeks since finishing it. Definitely will also be selective in recommending it for the same reasons, but I see why it garnered award considerations.
i love bleak but this was a collection of cliches in a tedious writing
one of the worst books i’ve read recently….
Yeah, I guess being gutting is kind of the point, but it succeeds. I enjoyed the writing style. I didn’t exactly enjoy the overall experience. Worthwhile, certainly. Making the political circumstances vague felt like a choice that worked, at least for me, but I can see how the impact wouldn’t be as great if you found the setting unfamiliar. Still holds up as a work of literature and I guess war and oppression and refugees are fairly universal themes but it does feel quite timely.
I’m currently close to the end and it is a very heavy book.
I totally understand it is about the universal rise of fascism and people trying to live their lives in war time but i have found it hard that there isn’t really any main leader ever spoken about. Fascism would always be totally based on a person and they would have a bigger made up enemy than trade unions.
I’m sure this has been done on purpose so as to just focus on normal people going through this horror but I found it a bit jarring especially as it’s set in Ireland and it would take something absolutely extraordinary to get to this point.
OP, you gave a good review. The book has stuck with me. Yes, it was terrifying to read, but I understand its merit.
Agree and that final stretch from the >!explosion on the street!< through the >!hospital and morgue!< to the end… was so gutting but the pacing and formatting didn’t give time to breathe and so when I finished it, I just started sobbing. I feel like all the weight of the book slammed into me at once. Truly a literary triumph. 100% deserved the Booker that it won.
And I really want a movie adaptation with Jessie Buckley as Eilish.
For people who struggle with the writing style, listening might be easier that reading. I listened and found it to be like an ongoing poem, but there were also pauses and weightings etc that sound like they may have not been indicated in print. (ETA: it was a gutting and brilliant listen, but it wasn’t narratively difficult to traverse)
Listened to the audiobook – finished a few days ago. Hell of a book. The morgue scene still sits in my head…
Read one of his other books and has the same sort of oppressive atmosphere to it.
Great books but not something you can pick up and read for fun on a Sunday afternoon.
Definitely have to be in the right frame of mind ( for my anyway)
Not reading the post to avoid spoilers, because I’m working through Lynch’s other stuff first. Picked up Black Snow and loved it, a slow gutting that sticks with you. Currently reading Grace and may like it even more.
Maybe I just don’t pay enough attention, but I’m surprised he isn’t talked about more
It’s a good book but I don’t think it’s a great book. This was hyped up a lot and maybe didn’t deliver. The problem with this kind of novel is that the elephant in the room is 1984 and that is hard to ignore. It’s always good to see an Irish writer doing well so I’m happy to support it.
I wanted to like this book much more than I ultiamtely did. Paul Lynch is an interesting writer but the big problem I had with the book was his prose are desperately trying to evoke McCarthy but they’re an order of magnitude less poetic and less beautiful. I read blood meridian not long before this one and I think that sullied prophet song to be because the prose style is so second rate compared to mccarthy that it borders on pastiche.
I did like the paragraph format (and actually that’s why I was drawn to the book in the first place!) and the general idea of the plot is pretty interesting, if a bit obvious, but it’s not near as layered or emotional as joyce, and nowhere near as beautiful as McCarthy.
I will say the ending two chapters were definitely exhillirating and finally got me into Eilish’s headspace and dissassociation. That was effective writing, but I still got pulled out every time Lynch tried to get poetic as a narrator.
I did like the book although the style of writing takes a while to get used to. Although a few complaints – totally understand the intention but I resent the idea he thinks he has to portray this experience via a white family in Ireland for people to feel compassion for refugees. I find it a little patronising and heavy handed.
Secondly, found Eilish so annoying. The random nasty comments were irritating and I didn’t really understand their purpose – elitist descriptions like ‘the feral manner of a youngster from the flat,’ random descriptions of people being fat/obese/junkies/ex-junkies with no teeth, pitying someone for going home to a ‘childless house.’ I didn’t understand if he wrote her to be so unlikeable or if he’s just kind of a dick?
The audiobook is great and obviously mitigates the “no paragraph break” structure – gotta say the writing style didn’t bother me at all and I found it very readable and gripping
I started second guessing my grasp on current events and convinced myself that there was a massive conflict in Ireland I just hadn’t heard about. I came dangerously close to asking an Irish coworker if her family is safe. Now I feel like an idiot.
I just finished this and wanted to comment in agreement. as someone who grew up on Faulkner and other Modernists, Lynch’s writing style is a beautiful, contemporary version of the syntax and sentence construction.
I also wanted to note (spoilers): I know many people >!get frustrated with Eilish because she pretty much refuses to leave until things have gotten so bad as to make leaving almost impossible. *this is the point of the story*. it’s written in such a way that someone who hasn’t lived through the rise of a Fascist government might actually empathize with someone who chose to stay, despite the “warning signs” (which are truly only signs in hindsight). Eilish is trapped, both literally and metaphorically, by the culture she was raised in.!<
I agree with others that >!following the explosion, the book picks up quite a bit of speed and becomes almost heart-wrenchingly devastating. the scene in the morgue — and the description of the torture they inflicted on *a child* — made me tear up.!<
it’s nigh-impossible to read this book today and not immediately draw comparisons to the war in Gaza. I’m gonna dry my eyes and go outside. thanks, Paul, for a beautiful, beautiful book.
I’m gonna get downvoted for this, I’m sure. The writing style was difficult to follow despite listening to the audiobook. >!One minute they couldn’t leave the house because the street was blocked off, the next minute Eilish is over at Simon’s.!< It was hard to follow.
I also get the impression that people haven’t necessarily put two and two together regarding Covid lockdowns and this book. The government of the day in Prophet Song is a far-right government and yet in Australia in Victoria (where I am) with the longest locked-down city in the world was run by a Marxist.
love this book and it is truly prophetic of what would be if trump gets in. I’m moving to Ireland.
Reading this book as a mom was really difficult for me. I finished it in the middle of the night when I couldn’t sleep and then hugged my own kids tight in the morning. I can’t imagine the pain and struggle she was going through throughout the book. I usually like reading sad and thought-provoking books, but this one was a little too intense for me… especially the government hospital scene. I thought the book was fast-paced and fascinating, but extremely hard to read as a parent. Definitely a gutting book.
Justo finisheds the book. Its claustrophobic, hard, dark. It’s more portrait of life in a world that is crumbling trough social happenings (war, revolution, social instability) that I would expected.
Some pieces are very heavy (specially if you are a parent) because in some weird way I felt a connection with Eilish drama.
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I don’t know how I feel about it. Didn’t really get me until the last 100 pages. Especially the hospital parts. The ending felt a bit abrupt. 7/10
This is unrelated but I just finished the book and really enjoyed it, but it’s eating me up that I don’t understand >! Who the man who takes her in the Land Rover after the border is? He hugs her and seems to know her and she calls him Gary. Who is Gary though? What’s their connection? I thought at first it was Carole Sexton’s husband which made me believe there was a chance Larry was still alive? But I don’t think that’s who he is now? Anyway if anyone knows please let me know !<