Helen Klein Ross’ most recent novel, “The Latecomers,” which she will read from at The White Hart on Nov. 6., was inspired by Lakeville and especially by her house. “There were stories coming from the walls,” author Ross says. She knew that she had to buy the house the moment she saw it. Even though she and her husband, Donald Ross, were renovating another house in Amenia where they had lived for 20 years of weekends and vacations, “‘Holleywood’ (the historic house on the lake in Lakeville they subsequently bought) was calling to me,” she says, curled up by the fireplace in the cozy library of the rambling Italianate house. It was built by the Governor of Connecticut Alexander Hamilton Holley in 1853 and passed down through generations of his family before the Rosses bought it in 2011. Ross, a poet and novelist, has lived in the house long enough now to be able to tell the stories it promised. Her current novel, “The Latecomers,” though not about anyone who actually lived there, is profoundly inspired by the house and informed by her meticulous research of historical details specific to Lakeville.
The novel tells the story of five generations of an aristocratic Connecticut family and how each generation is affected by an Irish immigrant girl hired as their housemaid in 1909. The novel unfolds from a mysterious death at the beginning of the century and moves into smartphones, email and ancestry apps in the present day. The story is told from different generations and with its interwoven timelines it sweeps most of the 20th century all the way up until the present.
Ross had to do extensive local research to know how things worked at different periods — for instance at one point she had a character dialing a phone to make a call in 1927 but Theodore O’Neill, a Lakeville resident whose great-great-great grandfather built Holleywood, told her that would never have been done at that time in Lakeville. Back then, one simply picked up the phone and said “Weezie, (Hannegan — O’Neill’s aunt) get me Mr. Smith.” and not only could Weezie connect you, she would know where exactly Mr. Smith was if she couldn’t connect you.
“The Latecomers” is about an immigrant and what it means to be a latecomer to anything. Ross says we are all late to something. In the summer of 2016 Ross had an advance to write a book but she was too happy to write. “Everything was in place, our house was finished, I had an advance, and we were about to elect the first woman president and then November, 2016 happened,” Ross said. She was inspired by the 2016 election because the issue of immigration now suddenly “felt urgent.” The book is not political in that way but the story emanates from the story of immigrants to the United States. Ross had a cache of letters from her great-uncle who was an Irish immigrant in Chicago and those letters along with many documents she had access to, thanks to Katherine Chilcoat the former town historian of Salisbury, Ross was able to tell a historically accurate story. The novel also has an extensive bibliography and a timeline of the historical events that the novel spans.
Helen Klein Ross will read from her book at the White Hart, 11 Main St. Salisbury, Conn. on Nov. 6, at 6 p.m.
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