The following version of this book was used to create the guide: Lynch, Paul. Prophet Song. Atlantic Monthly Press, 2023.

Paul Lynch's novel Prophet Song is set in Dublin, Ireland. Although the exact year in which the story takes place is never disclosed, context clues imply that the protagonist Eilish Stack and her family are living in the near future. The novel is written from the third person point of view and in the present tense. Although the author takes liberties with language, style, and form throughout, the following summary abides by a linear and streamlined mode of explanation.

Eilish Stack lives in Dublin, Ireland with her husband Larry and their four children Mark, Molly, Bailey, and Ben. Eilish works as a microbiologist. Larry is a teacher and a trade unionist. Although the right wing National Alliance Party, or NAP, came to power two years prior, the Stack family has been living in nominal peace.

Then one night, Eilish hears a knock at the door. Two inspectors from the NAP's secret police, or Garda National Services Bureau, are calling after Larry. Eilish promises to have Larry contact them when he returns home.

At Eilish's behest, Larry reports to the GNSB headquarters. The inspectors inform him that an allegation has been brought against him. They provide him with no further information regarding the supposed allegation.

Larry plans to attend a teachers' union rally in town. Worried about his safety, Eilish does not want him to go. However, she ends up urging him to attend, because she does not think the government can strip them of their civil liberties.

Government soldiers charge the teachers' rally and arrest protestors. Larry never returns home. Eilish does everything in her power to recover her husband, but no one can help her. She goes so far as to visit a GNSB officer's wife for information. This encounter only further discourages Eilish.

Eilish is overcome by anxiety and fear. She tries to maintain normalcy for her children, but feels powerless to protect them. When the state drafts her teenage son Mark, she insists that Mark go into hiding at their friend Carole Sexton's house. Not long later, Carole informs Eilish that Mark is missing. Mark contacts Eilish some time thereafter to say that he has joined the rebel forces.

The state publishes a list of names of all those who have shirked their duty to the government. Mark's name is on the list. Rumors about Eilish's family circulate. As a result, Eilish loses her job. Meanwhile, she tries to care for Molly, Bailey, Ben, and her ailing father Simon. She wants Simon, who has dementia, to move in with her. However, Simon does not want to leave home. Eilish's sister Áine calls Eilish repeatedly, begging her to flee Ireland and join her and her husband in Canada. Eilish refuses.

War breaks out between the state and the rebels. Eilish's road turns into a government checkpoint and a battleground. She and her children hole up on a single mattress with the radio. After the fighting abates, Eilish ventures out to find Simon. Not long later, Simon disappears. Áine informs her that she helped him flee Ireland.

During an airstrike one day, Bailey goes missing. Eilish races out into the ravaged streets to find him. Bailey is wounded and has a piece of shrapnel lodged in his skull. Eilish ferries him across the city to a hospital. The nurses will not let her stay the night with her son. In the morning, Eilish returns to the hospital, but Bailey is missing. The nurses inform her that government officials have transferred him to the military hospital.

At the military hospital, the attending guard tells Eilish they have no record of her son at their facility. Another citizen tells Eilish that she should check the military morgue for Bailey. For several days thereafter, Eilish visits the hospital, begging for information about Bailey. When she learns nothing of his whereabouts, she requests access to the morgue. The man in the morgue tells her she must check every bodybag for her loved one, as none of the bodies are named. Eilish is devastated when she finds Bailey's brutalized body therein.

Bailey's death compels Eilish to flee Ireland. With Áine's help, she takes Molly and Ben across the country and to the border. The family is devastated to leave their home, but crossing the ocean is their only chance at a new life.