Prophet-Song

BookNotes author: Paul-Lynch

A powerful exploration of how facism can overtake a country. Feels claustrophobic and tense throughout, with a couple of really shocking moments. Think its a powerful plea for empathy with refugees when we need it most.

  • Fascism can happy anywhere. Anyone can become a refugee.
  • Long. close interior paragraphs puts you almost in the head of Eilish but held at a distance.
  • Eilish is in denial of the situation, stays within the warzone, wanting her husband and son to come back.
  • Feels claustrophobic and tense throughout, with a couple of really shocking moments.
  • The details of the situation are left vague, with the focus on the day to day survival instead. The main character isn’t sure so we never are.
  • State and laws are agreed upon fictions that can be taken away without warning.
  • No happy ending, no release.
  • A powerful plea for empathy with refugees when we need it most.

History is a silent record of people who could not leave, it is a record of those who did not have a choice, you cannot leave when you have nowhere to go and have not the means to go there, you cannot leave when your children cannot get a passport, cannot go when your feet are rooted in the earth and to leave means tearing off your feet.