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Edith by Martina Devlin
Martina Devlin, an award-winning columnist for the Irish Independent and podcaster for Dublin City of Literature #CityofBooks, has delivered a new novel based on the life of Edith Somerville of ‘Somerville and Ross’ fame – authors of The Irish R.M.
In this work, set during the turbulent period of Irish Independence 1921–22, Somerville finds herself at a crossroads. Her position as a member of the Ascendancy is perilous as she struggles to keep her family home, Drishane House in West Cork, while others are burned out. After years in a successful writing partnership with Violet Martin, Edith continues to write after her partner’s death, comforted in the belief they continue to connect through automatic writing and séances.
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Against a backdrop of Civil War politics and lawlessness erupting across the country via IRA flying columns, people across Ireland are forced to consider where their loyalties lie.
In Edith, Devlin limns a vivid historical context in this story of proto-feminist Edith Somerville courageously trying to keep home and heart in one piece.
The story of Somerville and Ross is unique in the history of Irish women writers. Academic Shawn R. Mooney described these best-selling authors as ‘undeniably New Women: single, educated and economically independent writers whose lives and literary collaboration were unique manifestations of late-nineteenth century feminist strivings toward political and sexual equality’. Devlin depicts Edith in the round, suffering from loss, striving for safety, and keeping hold of hope in this captivating narrative set in the early years of a nascent state — a triumph of ventriloquism rooted in a society on the cusp of change.
‘Edith by Martina Devlin is a delicately layered novel. Warm, funny and authentic, its complexity is delivered with a charming and clever lightness of touch. Utterly beguiling.’ Dalkey Book Festival
‘Edith Somerville’s world is upended – her writing partner is gone; her safety, family home, and lifestyle are threatened by brewing civil war; and even her creativity is wavering. But Edith’s eponymous heroine is smart and sanguine, and she finds safety and comfort in esoteric practices as well as the arms of friends. This is a pacy novel of menace, intrigue, and nostalgia that examines the butting cultures of Independence Ireland with all the forensic joy in politics and language that readers expect from the wonderful Martina Devlin.’ Nuala O’Connor, author of NORA: A Love Story of Nora Barnacle and James Joyce
‘Edith is an engrossing and sensitive portrait of the writer Edith Somerville during the War of Independence when her writing partner Violet Ross is dead and her own career as a writer not flourishing. It is a portrait of a sensitive, solitary figure in a time of turmoil, of a woman striking out as an artist in a time when there were many barriers.’ Colm Tóibín, author of The Magician, and Laureate for Irish Fiction
‘Only a novelist as gifted as Martina Devlin could succeed in conjuring Edith’s complicated psyche, through moments of determination, exasperation and bewilderment, as the world transforms around her. Devlin’s bright imagination and keen ear for speech bring this book to life, vividly depicting a complex time, and a complex inner life.’ Doireann Ní Ghríofa, author of A Ghost in the Throat
