The Love and Death of Caterina author Andrew Nicoll on journalism and geography

Andrew Nicoll is not your archetypal novelist. "I detest this idea that a writer needs to retreat to a shed at the bottom of his lilac-scented garden in order to do any work," the gruff, bearded journalist declares.

By Jack McKeown
Published in the Courier : 26.04.11
Published online : 30.04.11 @ 04.30pm

"It's just a job like any other, or in my case, a very profitable hobby."

Andy wrote most of his first three novels — his second is due out this week, the third has just landed in his publisher's hands — longhand on his daily rail commute from Broughty Ferry to the Scottish Parliament. "Even when the train does actually run the journey is bloody awful," he says. "It's dead time. You can either read a book or write a book.

"I don't understand why this surprises everybody. Graham Greene would write 1000 words a day even if that meant stopping in the middle of a sentence. He was a fire-watcher during the Blitz. No one said how can you go and rescue people from burning buildings and then write sensitive, thoughtful novels?"

Andy's first novel, The Good Mayor, was released in 2008. It's a slow-burning, magical love story about the bachelor mayor of Dot, a town in a forgotten part of the Baltic whose geography may or may not be based on Dundee's, and his secretary, who is trapped in a loveless marriage.

Andy

Instead of being narrated by an omnipresent author, the story is told by Walpurnia, the town's patron saint, who was 'blessed' with a full, luxurious beard and a body almost entirely covered by warts as a bolster to her chastity. It's one of many imaginative quirks in a charming, unusual novel.

"The Good Mayor started out as a short story," Andy explains. "I had a dream. When I woke up I thought it would make a good little short story, perhaps about six to 10 pages. Eighteen months later it was a book."

The Good Mayor was an enormous success, with sales stretching into 30 countries and across at least 20 languages. Its popularity won its author the Saltire Prize for best first novel and sparked a bidding war for Andy's subsequent work, which saw him move away from Edinburgh based Black & White Publishing to Quercus, publishers of Stieg Larsson's multimillion selling Millennium trilogy.

His second novel, The Love and Death of Caterina, was released on Thursday. "It was inspired by a photograph I saw in a newspaper of a run-down tramp steamer in oily, still water with a crane and a net." Andy explains. "That was when I met Valdez."

The Love and Death of Caterina is published by Quercus. ISBN 978 1849 164719

Valdez is an outstanding writer whose work is celebrated far outwith his minor South American country, but who, as an individual, is sadly lacking in empathy, integrity and basic human decency. Such is the extent of his psychological airbrushing, when he looks in a mirror his eyes ignore a scar on his face inflicted in childhood.

"If you'll excuse me saying some really poncey, artsy stuff, he can't even really physically see himself, such is his lack of self-awareness," Andy says of his creation.

A tragedy about a beautiful young student who falls in love with Valdez's legend, the novel is unusual in that it gives away its ending in the first line:

"Only a few weeks after it happened, Luciano Hernando Valdez was almost unable to believe that he had ever been a murderer."

Andy's choice of setting was deliberate. "I see a lot of Valdez in the country he's from. It's got a navy but it's landlocked.

"That actually happened after a war between Bolivia and Peru, when Peru took away Bolivia's coastline. Yet Bolivia still has a flotilla of naval ships patrolling Lake Titicaca. A lot of the culture — the tango and so on — is taken from Argentina."

Andy (49) lives in a Victorian terrace a few paces from the sands of Broughty Ferry beach. He grew up in the fishing town, going to Grove Academy, and has lived there all his life.

After leaving school he went to work as a forester on the Scone Estates. "Then I went for a job as tea boy on Jackie magazine but they didn't want me," he jokes. "So they put me to work on The Courier instead."

Andrew spent 18 years working for this newspaper, as a general reporter and latterly as political editor. He left to join The Sun in 1998. He and his wife Anne have three children, Kenny (21), Margaret (19) and 16-year old Angus.

Andy's office is in the Scottish Parliament and as such his days are long. "I get up at 5.30 in the morning and come home around 9pm. I spend an hour or two writing on the way to work and back. And that's my life."

Though he's dabbled with poetry and short stories for many years - and has had quite a number of them published - Andy only began devoting more time to writing around a decade ago.

"It was a mid-life crisis thing. I was rushing towards 40 and had to find something else to do, some sort of external validation.