Martina Devlin has written a most fabulous book!

[Joe]

Reading great literature either fiction or non-fiction is like having a fine romance with a woman which leads into marriage with that woman and having a most splendid long and fruitful life together till one day she passes away leaving you with a great empty and painful void in your life. When you start a work of great literature and take the time to become completely absorbed into the work and savor each nuance of that work your are reading and then you come to the end of the work and you finish it; it is like when you have that fine romance that leads into a fabulous marriage which is long and happy till your spouse passes on leaving you with an empty void that only they can replace.
Martina Devlin has this very quality and capability of writing great works of literature that give you that feeling of a fine romance that turns into a most fabulous marriage which is a long and happy one and then your partner of the marriage dies leaving you feeling like you are left with a deep empty void wishing the story would have gone on forever.
I have just finished reading Devlin’s latest work entitled: THE HOUSE WHERE IT HAPPENED. She writes with a most superb technique and flair in the genre of historical fiction. With her latest work as well as her work entitled: SHIP OF DREAMS she shows us that she deserves to be placed among the greatest historical fiction writers such as Robert Graves, James A. Michener, Gore Vidal, Irving Stone, Thomas Costain, Taylor Caldwell, Diana Gabaldon, and others of that caliber and ability of this genre.
Devlin is also very adept in creating a haunted house story, a story about witchcraft, and a ghost story within her story of THE HOUSE WHERE IT HAPPENED. She also ranks as an equal among the greatest writers of these three story genres such as Edgar Alan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Rebecca Du Mauier, as well as many others of that caliber and ability in these three story genres.
Devlin has deftly and beautifully weaved historical facts into her story about the Irish province known as Ulster through the narrator of her story, Ellen, with flash backs to 1640-41 from when she sets the story in 1711. She wonderfully explains how the Scots came over to settle Ulster and displaced the native Irish of Ulster from their lands and how the native Irish fought back. She also explains the religious differences between the Scots who settled in Ulster and the native Irish of Ulster being that the Scots in Ulster were Protestant and how they showed their hatred and distain for the papism of the native Irish as well as some native Irish were still holding on to some of the pagan beliefs that were prevalent in pre-Christian Ireland. We had a perfect example of this in modern day Ulster with the late Ian Paisley, Sr. or Dr. NO in his earlier years before he mellowed.
Devlin has so richly given us both sociological and psychological dimensions to her development of each one of her characters in THE HOUSE WHERE IT HAPPENED as well as such vivid details of each of her settings in this story that it makes you feel that you are not just reading a book, but you are in the story and living it as a character that she has developed for her story. This is a true mark of an excellent writer of fiction of any genre and that is why Devlin should be considered to be in the upper echelons of the elite class of fiction writers for all times such as the ones mention elsewhere in this review.

I have two favorite passages from the book:
When I study on those events, I think about how neighbours turned their backs on neighbours. How the few were thrown to the wolves by the many. I don’t just mean during the witch trial, though they did it then as well. The Judas kiss I am talking about was given earlier, in 1641, when the Magees were wiped out by Scotch soldiers bent on revenge. Blood was spilled while neighbours looked the other way. {page 365}
I’ve turned it back and forth, like the wheelings of the tide, and this is how I see it. Knowehead is a house apart because it belongs to the land, not to them that raised it up or them that live in it. It was built in a place held sacred by a people who lived here long before Gael or planter. We call them pagans and think ourselves better than them but they grasped how everything comes from the land and they understood how folk serve the land rather than the other way round. {page 366}

Oh by the way, look for Devlin to give you an O’Henry twist at the end. She was brilliant with it. I did not see it coming.
In closing, I have been to Dublin, Ireland many a time and on one occasion I visited and went through the Dublin Writers’ Museum at 18 Parnell Square, Dublin 1. The museum has many exhibits dedicated to famous Irish authors and writers such as James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, W. B. Yeats, George Bernard Shaw, Bram Stoker, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Brendan Behan, Jonathan Swift, and several more. Some exhibits are dedicated to individual Irish writers and authors while there are other exhibits that are dedicated to a particular genre with several Irish authors and writers who have contributed to that particular genre. Now Martina Devlin deserves to have her own exhibit at the Dublin Writers’ Museum for her works in fiction as well as her editorial columns she has done for the Irish Independent newspaper because the quality of her writing ranks right up there in the upper echelons of Irish writers and authors of all time.
If you read and immensely enjoy THE HOUSE WHERE IT HAPPENED; then I whole heartily without any hesitation recommend to you other books by Devlin such as THE HOLLOW HEART, THE SHIP OF DREAMS, and BANKSTERS.
If you are also a member of a book reading club that is looking for an excellent work of historical fiction or a haunted house story or a witchcraft story or a ghost story look no further than THE HOUSE WHERE IT HAPPENED by Martina Devlin. There are excellent ideas for discussion questions in the back of the book if your book reading club chooses to read this book for a reading project. I would also highly recommend Devlin’s SHIP OF DREAMS as another great book for a reading project for a book reading club to pursue as well.

Jack Paul “Joe” Crill
JoeCrill@aol.com
Canyon, Texas
Sunday, 21 September 2014