Booker-longlisted novel is set in a dystopian Ireland, where secret police have emergency powers
Indeed, there is no shortage of heavyweight analogies here, and some good dramatic scenes too: when the family home is sprayed in red paint with the word TRAITER ; when Eilish runs from hospital to hospital in search of bad news, and is greeted with even worse; and the last pages of the novel, which seem to give the whole story purpose by twisting the reader into a fresh perspective on a timely issue.But as that implies, there is a lot lacking on the road to that ending.
It is possible to render a dystopia without specifics – Cormac McCarthy’s The Road did it brilliantly – but Lynch has none of McCarthy’s hardness or brevity of language. His neologism-riddled style takes risks that sometimes pay off, but more often they don’t.
The problem is deepened by the novel’s odd pacing – at the start people seem to have little awareness of the new laws restricting their rights, yet within what appears to be a few weeks, they are living among bombing and shelling, with “oil-dark smoke rising from multiple sites”, electricity cut off and queues for water trucks.
There are things worth seeing here, and elements worth preserving – such as Eilish’s constant battle against the increasing unknowability of her children, which is often beautifully rendered – but overall, Prophet Song feels like a good idea squandered.
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