Mark D. Devlin, 56; wove gripping stories out of troubled youth
Mark D. Devlin, 56, the author of ''Stubborn Child," a darkly entertaining memoir about his Dickensian upbringing in juvenile institutions, died March 10 in Braintree after spending much of the past 30 years wandering the streets of Boston and Cambridge.
''He had always been physically indestructible. I thought he was unkillable, or at the very least he would have died in the streets, but he died in a motel room that he paid for himself," said his friend Mark Zanger of Jamaica Plain.
Born in Boston, Mr. Devlin became a disciplinary problem after he was beaten and abused by his alcoholic father. In 1956, when he was 7, the boy who enjoyed exploring the fields of Franklin Park was deemed a ''stubborn child" under an archaic state law passed in 1654.
He spent most of the next 11 years in state institutions.
''I didn't know I was in jail. I didn't even know what a prison was or criminals were," Mr. Devlin said in a story published in the Globe in 1985. When he was asked why he was locked up, his standard reply was, ''I've been a bad boy."
He spent time in the Roslindale Detention Center, John Augustus Hall in West Boylston, Lyman School for Boys in Westborough, and the Institute for Juvenile Guidance in Bridgewater, where he remained until he was released when he turned 18.
''He had been through the whole Gulag," Zanger said.
Those institutions were dismantled, but it was too late for Mr. Devlin.
''I was a real together kid, and they untogethered me," Mr. Devlin said in 1985. ''Once you're in, you're continually made to believe that you're going on to more incredible crimes. If they tell you something long enough, you believe it. I came to believe I was a criminal."
Between age 18 and 24, Mr. Devlin spent three years in the Petersburg (Va.) Federal Reformatory after he was convicted of driving a stolen car across state lines.
Encouraged by Zanger and other local writers in 1976, the self-described ''road scholar" began to write about his experiences. He wrote on park benches, in fast-food restaurants, and in homeless shelters.
''I just went day after day, night after night. I carried a bag around on my shoulders with almost no clothes but filled with a thesaurus and dictionary and pencils and reams of paper," he said. ''When I wasn't physically writing, I was mentally writing."
The book was published by Athenaeum in 1985, to much acclaim.
''It was a tragic and difficult story, but it was a fun memoir," said Zanger, to whom the book is dedicated. ''It is the only record of the old reform school system from the inside."
In one haunting moment in the book, Mr. Devlin recalls looking across a courtyard in Bridgewater to see his father, who was in the unit for alcoholics.
When the book came out, Mr. Devlin kept in touch with his publisher from telephone booths and conducted interviews on park benches in the Public Garden.
A story in the March 1987 issue of Boston magazine reported that the movie rights to Mr. Devlin's story were sold to director William Friedkin for $10,000. Mr. Devlin reported that he intended to use the money to rent a house in Jamaica and ''join" Club Med. But the movie was never made, and he never made the trip.
Mr. Devlin spent most of the next three decades on the streets or in alcohol rehab hospitals and homeless shelters.
Because he usually had no fixed address, Mr. Devlin was not an easy man to keep in touch with. He often showed up unannounced at Zanger's home in Jamaica Plain. And he sometimes stopped by Anne Toop's home in Cambridge to store his work so it wouldn't be stolen.
''He was a poet who was natively good with words," Toop said. ''But things got in the way -- drinking and being manic depressive."
Under the best of circumstances, Mr. Devlin was a charming man with bad teeth and a glint in his eyes. But he suffered from a number of health problems, including his alcoholism, bipolar disorder, diabetes, and heart disease.
For a time, he wanted to become a ''Greek" singer. For a time, he intended to move to Hollywood and become a screenwriter. But his plans never came to anything.
Sometimes he told stories for drinks in barrooms.
''He told wonderful stories, some of them true," Zanger said. ''And the ones that were not true were wonderful stories, too. He was a homeless alcoholic, but he was a bright, decent, moral individual."
Mr. Devlin leaves his mother, Christine Wambolt of Rockland; a daughter, Lisa Devlin of New York; two brothers, Kevin of Pocasset and Hugh of New Mexico; and two sisters, Patrice Tuffo of Braintree and Donna Fitzgerald of Bridgewater.
A funeral service has been held. 