When Brendan Rielly published his first crime novel, he joined two other generations of published Riellys: His father and son.
“Now I know what my father went through,” he said. “And my son. Writing is hard. They were making fun of me for being the hole in the doughnut.”
Rielly’s debut novel, “An Unbeaten Man,” won a Maine Literary Award for best crime fiction in 2016, and he’s deep into his second crime thriller.
His son, Morgan, 21, also is working on his second book, this one about Maine’s teenage immigrant community. It’s a follow-up to his 2014 book of interviews with Maine World War II veterans, “Neighborhood Heroes: Life Lessons from Maine’s Greatest Generation.” He started interviewing Maine veterans when he was 14, and the book was published when he was 17 and a high school senior.
Morgan Rielly is on track to graduate in 2018 from Bowdoin College, where he is working on a double major in government and religion and minoring in Arabic studies.
Brendan Rielly’s father, Edward, is a longtime English professor at Saint Joseph’s College in Standish, where he directs the writing program. He has lost track of his titles, and counts them by the dozen. He’s written biographies of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Sitting Bull, cultural explorations of baseball and football, and a memoir of life on a farm, “Bread Pudding.” He’s also written several volumes of poetry and haiku.
The elder Rielly instilled writing in his son and grandson. Seeing each get published is one of the best things that has happened to him as a father and grandfather, he said. “It’s wonderful to see Brendan and Morgan both doing really good work,” he said.
Brendan Rielly calls himself the slacker of the bunch because he was the last of the three to be published. He has a busy life outside of writing. He is a partner at the Portland law firm Jensen Baird, where he chairs the litigation department. He lives in Westbrook, where he serves as city council president. He’s coached soccer, taught religious education and been active in civic and community organizations for years.
An international spy thriller with settings in Maine, “An Unbeaten Man” was Rielly’s first published book, but he’s been writing for years. He has one manuscript from college still sitting in a drawer. He’s finished his second book and is shopping it to agents.
The success of “An Unbeaten Man” and the early positive response to his second make him feel like he has arrived as a writer. Winning a literary award helps, too. “It’s a major stamp of legitimization,” he said. “When you write something, you don’t know if it’s any good. It’s nice when other people think so.”
Published by Down East Books, “An Unbeaten Man” chronicles the exploits of Michael McKeon, a Bowdoin College professor who creates a microbe that cleans up oil spills by devouring the oil. The Global Group kidnaps his wife and daughter, and Bowdoin becomes a player in an international drama involving the governments of the United States, Russia and Saudi Arabia.
His second book involves McKeon’s entanglements with an Iranian physicist, a former Bowdoin student and the world’s first private entity controlling nuclear weapons.
Rielly’s material comes from his imagination and his background. He studied government and Russian at Bowdoin, graduating in 1992. He flirted with taking a job in Siberia monitoring the disarming of Russian nuclear weapons and chose law school instead.
Like his dad, Morgan Rielly started writing early in life. He got the idea for the World War II book after talking to a friend of his grandfather, who served in World War II. Morgan enjoyed listening to the man’s story, and felt honored he was trusted with it. He interviewed two dozen other WWII veterans from Maine and told their stories in “Neighborhood Heroes.”
For his next project, he’s collecting stories for a book about Maine’s teenage immigrant community. He interviewed about 25 people and is transcribing those interviews and writing their stories. “Every immigrant or refugee here in Portland has a story,” he said. “And I really like listening to people’s stories.”
Edward Rielly also learned the joys of writing early in life and benefited from not feeling restricted by any particular genre. He’s written mostly nonfiction, but has had fun with poetry and children’s books. His latest, the memoir “Bread Pudding,” is about growing up in southern Wisconsin, the youngest of five kids. He worked his way through high school and college and earned advance degrees. By example, he has shown his kids and grandkids – and many students over his career – the noble calling of the written word.
“Teaching and writing, that’s what I’ve done,” he said. “I’m proud to have made it my career.”
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