Loss and Grief

Prophet Song is a dystopian, speculative novel that centers Eilish’s succession of losses as its primary narrative conflict. Set in Dublin in the near future, the novel’s political tensions beget thematic explorations about destruction, devastation and subsequent grief. At the start of the novel, Eilish is living with her husband and four children. They live a standard middle-class lifestyle and find comfort and familiarity in their predictable domestic dramas. However, once the National Alliance Party takes control, Eilish quickly finds the government robbing her of her family and her basic civil liberties. After she loses her husband Larry to the GNSB, Eilish soon loses her eldest son Mark to the rebel armies. Not long later, she loses her job and her elderly father Simon. As her once-familiar life crumbles around her, Eilish begins to realize that “happiness hides in the humdrum, how...