Prophet Song by Paul Lynch

 Monday, Jan. 22, 2024--San Antonio

Prophet Song by Paul Lynch was the winner of the Booker Prize this year.  It is a story of the fall of democracy in Ireland over a short period of time as an elected Far Right government declares emergency powers, closes borders, establishes a police force to make sure that anyone against them disappears, etc.  It is the story of what happened more slowly in places like Germany during the Nazi period, and what seems to be happening in places all over the world right now as far right governments come to power--places like Hungary, Turkey, and even the USA under Trump.  What's interesting is that Lynch wrote his story several years ago before Jan. 7 here and before the Far Right started making inroads in more liberal democracies in Europe such as Germany, Sweden, the EU, etc.  My guess is that the book was too much of a downer for him to get it published until all of these present rises of the Far Right began to seem serious threats.  This book being available right now is a warning of what could actually come to be for those of us who have felt safe with the freedoms we have had.  When Trump says, "I will be a dictator only on Day 1," that's all it would take to announce emergency powers, the production of a new national policing force, and to begin a process resulting in "disapearing" opponents and the establishment of rules to keep everyone wanting to leave the country in place.  The book is stressful to read, because it is easy to realize it has already happened elsewhere could actually happen wherever the reader lives.  At times, the stress from reading it resulted in my putting it aside after no more than 20 pages.  Toward the end, after civil war has broken out and the rebels have come close to taking back control, the government does what so many others have done.  They open a corridor to allow people to leave, but with heavy restrictions of what they can take with them and with traps along the way where the authorities require bribes which usually come in the form of money, but also with alternatives (for instance an hour alone with a 13-year-old daughter if she is pretty enough).  The end of the escape route has two branches that are familiar in the world today--one where everyone crossing the border who presents themselves to the government of the new country gets put in tent compounds possibly for years and another where smugglers are paid even more in bribes to be transported by trucks over land and rubber boats over seas until they reach another country with no certainty that they can trust those transporting them or that they will arrive alive.   I gave the book 4 1/2 stars out of 5.