Preview
  • Prophet Song

  • By: Paul Lynch
  • Narrated by: Gerry O'Brien
  • Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins
  • 4.4 out of 5 stars (546 ratings)

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Prophet Song

By: Paul Lynch
Narrated by: Gerry O'Brien
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Publisher's summary

Winner of the Booker Prize 2023

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 when her husband disappears, Eilish finds herself caught within the nightmare logic of a society that is quickly unravelling.

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.

2023, Booker Prize, Winner

2023, An Post Irish Book Awards Novel of the Year, Short-listed

©2023 Paul Lynch (P)2023 Bolinda Publishing
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Critic reviews

'I haven't read a book that has shaken me so intensely in many years ... The comparisons are inevitable – Saramago, Orwell, McCarthy – but this novel will stand entirely on its own.' (Colum McCann, author of Apeirogon)
'Monumental ... You remember why fiction matters. It's hard to recall a more powerful novel in recent years.' (Samantha Harvey, author of The Western Wind)
'Prophet Song is a literary manifesto for empathy for those in need and a brilliant, haunting novel that should be placed into the hands of policymakers everywhere.' (The Guardian)

What listeners say about Prophet Song

Average customer ratings
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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Painfully powerful Tale.

A friend who recommended it called it intense. The Audible summary called it propulsive. Both right and both words fall short.

Written as if a single sentence this novel carries you along as on a violent red wave as the heroine struggles to survive in an Ireland gone mad and The Troubles rip the covers off her simple, peaceful life and toss her and her Family into a whirlpool of Totalitarian Control.

Reading it at this time of Fear that it can happen here in America magnifies the impact of her story, but Lynch’s storytelling skill has created a timeless horror tale.

Four Stars. ****

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15 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Well worth it

Phenomenal portrait of what this must be like - What to believe? Are you naive? Are you over reacting? In a real crisis sometimes every action seems as overreaction until it’s over when those same actions are found to have been inadequate. Powerful story

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8 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Incredible in every way

Must listen. Let it affect you as it is meant to. Can we even be considered living without courage?

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7 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

could've been bettee

Just my opinion,but an interesting concept but missed the mark for me. Too verbose- I kept saying "move on" with the overly flowery, philosophical descriptions. Important thing to take from this is-beware- this could literally be the US if a certain orange man takes over again. No verbosity here- TAKE CARE OF YOUR COU TRY & VOTE BLUE.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Portrait of dread

Amazing writing, great reading, heartbreaking subject. A detailed warning about what unthinkable dissolution of society can happen, week by week, from the p.o.v. of one desperate mother’s breaking heart.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

A Brilliant Book

This is a remarkable feat-and today it could be Gaza or Lebanon or Russia. Language, story, consciousness- unrivaled

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

generic autocracy

Welcome to Dystopia. Without context one dystopia is as good as another. Some, ANY, context would lend believability to the story. And Ireland!! For gods sake, anywhere but Ireland. Just doesn't ring true. Critics laud the absence of a back story claiming that this nasty autocratic, villainous government could apply to any nasty villainous government anywhere. That's the problem!
The writing is also marred by "overmetaphorization". If one metaphor is good then two or three is better. Every item is encrusted with frilly prose which is distracting and slows the pace of the narrative

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6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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Timely

Took me to the darkness that I pray we never reach in this country. An important read for those who believe it can’t happen.

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

How adeptly the reader handled the author’s style of writing to convey so perfectly this amazing novel.

Loved every inch of this most amazing novel. It’s an utter masterpiece and I could not stop reading/listening.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Epic/

The creative use of language served as an emotional hook. It was a universal story that hit home especially in these precarious political days.

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3 people found this helpful