Welcoming a new novel into the world is much like announcing a baby. A novel, though, is much more work before its birth, and a baby more work afterwards. The newest member of my heritage fiction lineup is Innocents at Home. It was inspired by a tidbit uncovered in my family research. I discovered two of my ancestors had been on the cruise with Mark Twain that inspired his novel Innocents Abroad. Even more intriguing, I learned one of them hated Mark Twain for the rest of her life and the other fell in love with him. I wondered what happened to these women after that, and the real research began.
Seventeen-year-old EMMA BEACH was on the cruise with her father, Moses Beach, owner of the New York Sun newspaper. Descended from William Brewster, the religious leader on the Mayflower, the Beach family held a prominent place in Victorian New York society. On the voyage, thirty-one-year-old Samuel Clemens (who would become the author Mark Twain) played chess with Emma and praised her drawings of shipboard life. She fell in love, but according to family legend, her father told her, “I will never let you marry that Western roughneck.” From his letters, it’s clear the author considered Emma a good friend. There is no indication he ever led her to believe he’d marry her. So, heart broken, Emma turned to painting.
Over the next few years, she met Kate Bloede and Abbott Thayer, who would change her life. To find out more about Emma Beach, read The Ladies of Innocents at Home on my webpage.
NINA LARROWE was supposed to go on the cruise with her husband, Marcus, but he had a family emergency. Nina went to help aging relatives navigate their way through the Holy Land. Upon the voyagers’ return, Mark Twain wrote articles and gave well-attended talks, one of which was titled The American Vandal. The author’s sarcasm is well documented, but even so his comments about his fellow travelers was often mean. The fallout from the scandal about their behavior caused Nina’s husband to leave her and society to ostracize her. Determined not to pine away, Nina became an actress.
As she built a career for herself on the stage, Nina battled her mother’s disapproval. Her sense of duty to an aging parent warred with the selfish goal of achieving her career dreams. The find out more about Nina Larrowe, read The Ladies of Innocents at Home on my webpage.
Neither of these women had any children of their own, so my relationship to them is not direct. Visit my webpage to see how they both fit on my family tree, and see a key to how each of my ancestors appears in my novels.
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A five-month voyage to the Holy Land in 1867 led Mark Twain to write his novel Innocents Abroad. But what happened to those innocents after they returned to New York? Innocents at Home tells the tale of Nina Larrowe and Emma Beach, two of Twain’s shipmates.
Nina Larrowe anticipates resuming her place in New York society, but Twain’s careless remarks about her behavior ostracize her and force her to reevaluate everything she thought she knew. Nina becomes an actress and embarks on a life she never could have imagined. After a series of disappointments, Nina must rise from the ashes once again to craft a life she can take pride in.
The daughter of a newspaper magnate, Emma Beach falls head-long in love with the flirtatious Sam on her trip to the Holy Land. Her dreams are proven to be fantasies when Sam marries another. She is content to spend her days painting and taking care of others…until she realizes there could be more to the life she’s been living and reaches for a chance at her own happiness.
Based on Nina’s autobiography and Emma’s letters to Mark Twain, Innocents at Home explores how these two women inspired each other to overcome devastation and discover the courage to live life on their own terms.
Linda Ulleseit writes award-winning heritage fiction set in the United States. She is a member of Historical Novel Society, Women's Fiction Writers Association, and Women Writing the West as well as a founding member of Paper Lantern Writers. Get in touch with her on Instagram (lulleseit) and Facebook (Linda Ulleseit or SHINE with Paper Lantern Writers).