Interviews

Interview 1 : Sunday Independent

Three Wise Men, a story about three unwise women from Omagh, reflects much of Martina Devlin's background, says Ciara Ferguson. Before the name became synonymous with that never-to-be-forgotten atrocity in 1998, Omagh was a small innocuous Irish town much like any other. And it is that Omagh where Three Wise Men, Martina Devlin's first novel, begins.

The author speaks with a soft Omagh accent reminiscent of all those we heard on the news,then and since, her long red hair framing a fragile china-doll face. But behind the softness is an immediately detectable force of character and intelligence. You get the impression she doesn't suffer fools gladly. She is, in fact, the kind of woman for whom she has written her novel. 'Friendship is the theme because I believe it is the most important of relationships,' explains Martina Devlin. 'Women have always nurtured their girlfriends, but friends have now become more important than ever. People will always get married and there's nothing like being a bride in a lovely frock, all those pressies, but it's no longer necessarily made to last.

'If you look around, there is a huge number of single women living on their own, quite happily. I belong to the first generation of Irish women to have their own mortgage and career. I have had access to education and opportunity and here I am, living alone, making my own decisions, for better or worse. 'If my grandmother came back today she would be amazed - and I think delighted - at how things have changed. In her day, if a woman didn't get married she simply wouldn't have a home of her own. "Spinster" has never had the same connotations as "bachelor", but being single is now seen more as an affirmation of choice.' It is this aspect of contemporary Irish society that has inspired her story about the complex friendship of three women. Indeed Martina was surprised when a reader felt that the men in her novel are presented in a negative light. 'It's not that I'm not partial to men,' she is quick to point out, a gleam in her eye, 'but I think my male characters are realistic. I grew up with five brothers and I think I have an idea what goes on in their minds. Women don't come out of it [the book] that brilliantly either,' she laughs. The women in question are Gloria, Eimear and Kate, who have known each other since they were a trio of six-year-olds cast as the Three Wise Men in the school nativity play. Twenty-five years on, they've left Omagh for Dublin and grown up to be three very unwise women. Eimear's beauty captivates men but robs her of her independence. Kate's dazzling wit blinds her to the consequences of betraying a friend. And Gloria's urge to nurture, thwarted by infertility, threatens to destroy everything she holds dear.

'Any woman can slap on a bit of lipstick and find a boyfriend, but a friendship that goes back 20 years is completely beguiling,' Martina continues. 'These are people who have a database of information on you, who knew you when you had a crush on David Cassidy or when the first guy broke your heart.' Martina Devlin grew up in Omagh and, like a lot of teenagers at that time, left, at 18, the small town drawn so fondly in her book. She spent a year in Dublin studying law. and later, with a host of others in the mid-Eighties, went to London, where she studied English Literature. A journalism course followed, before she got a job with the Press Association (PA).

During that time, one of Martina Devlin's celebrity interviews involved a meeting with the infamous Reggie Kray. 'He came into the visiting room straight up to me and kissed me hard on the lips, leaving me too speechless to conduct much of an interview. Then he started writing to me at work, which pleased the editor but left me with other thoughts,' she recalls. Six year later, Martina began to think about coming home. 'I was offered a place in Trinity College to do a master's in Anglo-Irish Literature and thought: If I don't do it now, I never will. Having grown up in Northern Ireland in the Troubles, Martina found Dublin a very different place. It was 1996, the year she wrote her first short story and won the Hennessy Prize.

She continued writing fiction and continued with journalism, becoming a staff reporter with the Irish Independent. There was also a brief marriage that didn't work out. 'That was a very dark time but I think every writer needs that to draw on. When you are drawing a character you can tap into the emotions, imagine how someone might behave in a given situation and then build layer upon layer. I waited until I felt I had something to say, before beginning my novel. I thought there was a gap in the `chick fic' market for intelligent women who wanted a light read. I wanted to produce a well-written book for that market and I worked quite hard to do that. One really good thing about journalism is that it teaches you that you have no right to be read. You have to entertain and stimulate.'

Three Wise Men, currently number two on the best-seller list, was finished two-and-a-half years ago. Martina's second novel is being edited at the moment and her third is just begun. 'Seeing Three Wise Men on the bookshelves is the most amazing feeling. I just want to hug every one who buys one. I feel a bit of a fraud, as if I'm waiting for someone to catch on to me. 'The other week I was signing books with the marketing director from HarperCollins when he got a phone call and said, "I can't talk now, I'm with one of our authors," and I found myself looking around to see who he meant!'

Given that Martina Devlin's Three Wise Men has brought some style to a genre too often peppered with mediocrity, she may need to get used to the attention.

Copyright: Sunday Independent January 2001