After just a few pages into Prophet Song by Paul Lynch, I didn’t think it was for me. This was disappointing given how much I typically love Booker Award winners. Written in continuous present tense with no paragraph divisions – so no breaks for dialogue – it felt a little too much like stream of consciousness.
However, once the plot took off I realized how fitting the writing style was. Reading Prophet Song feels like the thrill of rolling down a hill, unable to stop, and picking up momentum.
It begins when a family with four children is disrupted one night by two policemen who come looking for their father. A few days later he’s taken in and held with very little explanation, which is the beginning of a complete collapse of life as they know it.
What made my reading experience of Prophet Song even more poignant was that at the same time, I was listening to a World War II novel. Moving between these two settings took more effort than you might think, needing to intentionally differentiate between what happened to Jews at the beginning of World War II and what was being described in this dystopian Irish novel.
Once you adjust to the style, you’ll quickly be swept up into a fast-paced narrative told through the eyes of the mother, Eilish. I was completely consumed by her struggle to make sense of a world where the inconceivable is happening, all the while balancing trying to her family intact and helping the ones who remained to survive.
Like most Booker winners, I highly recommend Prophet Song.
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