The Yellow House

By Patricia Falvey
Center Street, $21.99, 329 pages

The setting is the highly dramatic revolutionary period in Northern Ireland at the beginning of the 20th century. Eileen O’Neill’s family is at the epicenter.  The “Yellow House” in which she spent her childhood is lost to her through political upheaval, and regaining this house and the sense of home it represents becomes the central focus of her young adulthood.  Falvey very successfully weaves together the politics, history, and landscape of Ireland in this period.  She deftly creates a heroine with strong personality and believable convictions, adds interesting heroes (one a passionate revolutionary leader and one an ardent pacifist) who offer the heroine alternative choices for romantic love.  And the island country itself becomes a character:  green rocky hills, Catholic rules and comforts, whiskey, music, weavers and mill workers.  With this setting and these characters as her tools, Falvey brilliantly illustrates the cultural, political, and economic conflicts that result in erecting Ireland’s North/South dividing border.  The well-researched history of the period emerges through the characters, their conflicts, and their choices.  The story is absorbing and satisfying historical fiction.

Reviewed by Marcia Jo