Manifesto for Empathy

---

In two weeks, the U.S.A. will elect its 47th President. I believe it’s not an exaggeration to say the world is holding its breath. Will it be a repeat of the chaos that ensued after Donald Trump lost in 2020? Will it be worse? Whoever is elected, will the other side recognize the legality of the outcome or will anarchy reign? If it does, what will that look like for those both inside and outside America?
 
As the globe spins towards more tyrannical leaders enforcing policies that were unthinkable only a few short years ago, it’s difficult to envision how much further elected officials, their military, and their bureaucracy can go towards oppression. It’s a chilling prospect. While we march into this dystopian future, we can hide beneath the covers, or we can look it defiantly in the eye.
 
This is what Irish writer Paul Lynch has chosen to do with his most recent novel, Prophet Song.
 
Eilish Stack is a scientist and mother of four, the youngest a baby still breastfeeding, living in the suburbs of Dublin. When the newly formed Gardia National Services Bureau arrive on her doorstep one dark, wet evening looking for her union rep husband, she is understandably rattled. The governing National Alliance party have brought in the GNSB to replace the Special Detective Unit soon after they came to power. As Eilish’s father, Simon, tells her, the government is effectively trying to alter reality.
 
“… if you change ownership of the institutions then you can change ownership of the facts, you can alter the structure of belief, what is agreed upon, that is what they are doing… The NAP is trying to change what you and I call reality, they want to muddy it like water, if you say one thing is another thing and you say it enough times, then it must be so, and if you keep saying it over and over people accept it as true…”
 
Of course, this idea has gained a lot of traction in recent years as we watch Donald Trump, and his ilk use these same tactics to further their own ends.
 
When Eilish’s husband is “detained”, the union and lawyers try and fail to find out where he is. And then things become worse. More people disappear, some emigrate for other countries, and the police state causes Ireland to spiral into chaos. Eilish is urged to leave for Canada where her sister lives, but denial overrides logic. As she witnesses society’s collapse, she fights to hold her family together and keep her children safe, a struggle less and less likely.
 
Like a lobster in a boiling pot, people don’t realize their freedoms have been obliterated until it’s too late: “All your life you’ve been asleep, all of us sleeping and now the great waking begins.”
 
Even her father’s increasing dementia is part of Eilish’s responsibility, as he struggles to comprehend what is happening to his world, and to the people he loved. He longs for his wife, who has been gone for some years. His sadness is heartbreaking, as he wonders aloud, “where does all our love go when once we held it beating in our hand?”
 
Everything is political, but it is only the individual that matters, the individual whose story we need to hear. The bombings, the homelessness, the food shortages, the refugee crisis, is always a real consequence with real effects. War becomes an abstract concept in the absence of the personal, so it is crucial to be reminded of the individual. This book does that brilliantly.
 
Prophet Song echoes the violence in Palestine, Ukraine and Syria, and the experience of all those who flee from war-torn countries. This is a story of bloodshed and heartache that strikes at the core of the inhumanity of western politicians’ responses to the refugee crisis.
 
Lynch’s message is crystal clear: lives the world over are experiencing upheaval, violence, persecution. 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.
 
Don’t be put off by the form of Prophet Song. Without paragraphs or dialogue quotes, it demands the reader’s attention. This format echoes the breathless, claustrophobic quality of a world falling apart before your eyes. It’s not always an easy read, but its gripping, powerful, and unforgettable.
 
I’d like to give a shout out to my good pal, Rae, for turning me on to this amazing writer.
​
And in the meantime, happy reading.
Joni