By Bonnie Rochman, Staff Writer
Raleigh News & Observer
August 11, 2008
DURHAM - Andrew Britton was changing oil at the Bragtown Shell service station when he began piecing together the story of counterterrorist operative Ryan Kealey.
Kealey is a captain in the U.S. Army's third Special Forces Group, a contract operative with the CIA who has helped save the president's life. He was captivating enough to bring Britton, his creator, a book deal.
Britton was 23 when he landed a contract for his first novel, "The American," a tale of international espionage. "The Assassin" followed, continuing the adventures and escapades of Ryan Kealey and eventually securing a berth on the New York Times bestseller list. In March, his most recent novel, "The Invisible," was published. That same month, he died in his sleep of an aneurysm. Britton was 27.
Britton was born in 1981 in England and spent time in Northern Ireland, where his mother's family still lives. In 1988, his family moved to Michigan. When he was in high school, they relocated to Raleigh. Britton graduated from Leesville Road High School and attended UNC-Chapel Hill. In between, he joined the Army as a combat engineer.
A voracious reader, Britton began writing five years ago after he read a book that didn't live up to its billing. He didn't remember the name or the author, but he did remember his knee-jerk reaction.
I can do that, he thought.
So he tried.
"It wasn't really a conscious decision," he said in a February interview with bookreporter.com. "I found myself wondering if I could do better. When I realized it was all coming together, I knew I had to take it as far as I could, but I never decided I was going to write for a living. That just kind of happened."
Britton would go home after work, fire up his computer and plop down on a green tartan couch his mother gave him when he got out of the Army. Sitting there, he mapped out "The American."
It can be next to impossible to land a literary agent, but Britton had little trouble. He sent a cover letter and the first chapter of "The American" to Nancy Coffey in New York.
Intrigued, she requested the entire manuscript, read it, then signed Britton the next day.
"I thought he was the most natural storyteller I had seen in a long while," Coffey said. "Everything you want a good novel to be was in 'The American.' "
Its protagonist, Kealey, was always on Britton's mind. Britton would scribble plot lines on scraps of paper and jot dialogue on restaurant receipts. He'd peoplewatch, then work what he'd observed into a scene.
But he didn't talk much about his writing. He shunned the media and was so shy that he asked his mother to do interviews for him. She wouldn't.
Though he cringed at the requisite literary meet-and-greets, he did host his first book signing at Raleigh pub Tir Na Nog, where his mother, Annie Nice, is general manager.
He kept a low profile in the Triangle, but nationwide, book reviewers raved, comparing him to famous suspense novelists.
Readers agreed.
"Look out, Tom Clancy, this guy is going to steal your spotlight!," reads one post on amazon.com. Despite his status as a published author, Britton struggled with believing in his talent.
"The biggest challenge is the doubt," he told bookreporter.com. "Even after three books, I still find myself questioning what I'm doing, and I can't help but feel that it slows me down."
If his first novel had not been published, Britton's mother said, he never would have mentioned his writing.
In fact, he didn't share the news with his family until he had a contract in hand from Kensington Books.
Britton was about 11 when he started getting into fiction. It was snowing outside, and he complained to his mother that he had read all the books on his bookshelf.
Read an adult book, she suggested, and handed him a novel by Jack Higgins, the British author of "The Eagle Has Landed."
He was smitten.
After that, "he would nearly eat books," Nice said.
He amassed so many that Nice had to buy two extra bookshelves after he died in order to store the books in her apartment. She still has four boxes in storage.
Writing books for a living is a demanding profession. Publishers want them one after the other, so the buzz doesn't have a chance to die down. Britton was at work on his fourth novel when he died.
In the bookreporter.com interview, Britton told readers that the book opens with a "brutal, shocking event in West Darfur" but kept its ending a secret.
His mother wouldn't divulge details but said the novel will be published.
***
Andrew Britton is survived by his mother, Annie Nice; his brother and sister; his stepfather, Graham Nice; and his girlfriend, Valarie Bullaughey.
ON THE WEB: Andrew Britton's Web site: http://www.andrewbrittonbooks.com/content/index.asp
bonnie.rochman@newsobserver.com or (919) 829-4871
No comments:
Post a Comment