Take Five: Heather Webb and THE NEXT SHIP HOME

We’re thrilled to share an inside look at longtime contributor Heather Webb’s latest novel, out on February 8th, The Next Ship Home. You know Heather, of course, from her many generous posts here at WU, but you may have missed what a powerhouse author and editor she is professionally. From her bio:

Heather Webb is the USA Today bestselling and award-winning author of seven historical novels. In 2015, Rodin’s Lover was a Goodread’s Top Pick, and in 2018, Last Christmas in Paris won the Women’s Fiction Writers Association STAR Award. Meet Me in Monaco, was selected as a finalist for the 2020 Goldsboro RNA award in the UK, as well as the 2019 Digital Book World’s Fiction prize. To date, Heather’s books have been translated to sixteen languages. She lives in New England with her family, a mischievous kitten, and one feisty rabbit.

The Next Ship Home is a SheReads Most Anticipated Novel of 2022 and the book received a wonderful review from Booklist:

“Webb tells the story of female friendship and strength…With compelling detail, she weaves in suspense with secrets and the risk of danger due to riots, deportation, and an upset society. This is a great historical read.”

Read on to learn more about The Next Ship Home. Congratulations, Heather!

Q1: What’s the premise of your new book?

 HW: Two women face the misdeeds of a system known to manipulate and abuse immigrants searching for new hope in America, form an unlikely friendship―and share a terrible secret―altering their fates and the lives of the immigrants who come after them.

The book is inspired by true events and holds up a mirror to our own times, deftly questioning America’s history of prejudice and exclusion while also reminding us of our citizens’ singular determination. This is a novel of the dark secrets of Ellis Island, when entry to “the land of the free” promised a better life but often delivered something drastically different, and when immigrant strength and female friendship found ways to triumph even on the darkest days.

Q2: What would you like people to know about the story itself?

HW: The story is inspired by true events. The newspaper articles framing the story are my creation but are based on real articles. It was in the NYT archives that I found my story—one of corruption, abuse, and a grand jury case in which forty employees and companies associated with Ellis Island were indicted. While my protagonists are fictional, my antagonists are based on real people that worked at Ellis Island. Also, the culminating “cleaning house” at Ellis Island did, in fact, take place at Teddy Roosevelt’s direction.

Q3: What do your characters have to overcome in this story? What challenge do you set before them?

HW: Alma is a first generation German-American citizen who lives and works in her parents’ bierhall, but she’s soon sent to work at Ellis Island as a matron—and hates it. She must learn to overcome her awkward shyness, the prejudices she has toward immigrants that she has learned from her parents, and ultimately, she must confront the corrupt immigrant processing system (and my antagonist) to free herself from an impending marriage—and life—that she doesn’t want. She strives to find her own voice.

Francesca is my other protagonist. She sails in from Sicily, escaping a terrible home life, and is soon confronted with prejudice, abuse, and the difficulties that come with assimilating into a new culture (and one that doesn’t see her for who she is, only what she represents). She becomes unlikely friends with Alma and the two women come into their own, together and separately, inspiring one another and learning to become who they’re meant to be.

“With meticulous research and deft prose, Heather Webb crafts an unflinching look at the immigrant experience, an unlikely and unique friendship, and a resonant story of female empowerment.  The Next Ship Home is truly a beautiful and powerful book.” –Pam Jenoff, NYT Bestselling Author of The Woman With The Blue Star

Q4: What unique challenges did this book pose for you, if any?

HW: The story took quite a winding path to completion. At one point, I cut the entire last third of the book and had to rewrite it! I realized I had too many plot elements working against each other rather than in tandem, which muddied the main storyline. That was an epic edit. I also tried to frame the narrative with snippets of immigrant interviews to elicit the feel of all of those voices passing through the halls of Ellis Island, with differing cultures but similar needs and dreams. It didn’t work. It cluttered the narrative and confused the main characters’ stories. I was sad to lose that piece, but instead, I framed the story with fictional newspaper articles (based on real articles in the NYT archives) about the goings-on at Ellis Island. It ended up adding tension and foreshadowing, and worked really well. The moral of the story is, the experimentation is all part of the process and THE FUN!  

Q5: What has been the most rewarding aspect of having written this book?

HW: I really, really loved writing it. We love all of our books, certainly, and they each teach us something new, but this was probably my favorite novel that I’ve written. I’m passionate about languages and culture, ancestry and genealogy, and also about the immigrant experience. What it means to assimilate—to belong in two places and to belong nowhere. The research was a ton of fun, too. I spent a lot of time at Ellis Island, watching all of the videos, snapping up books in their bookstore, talking at length with the librarian there with my notebook in hand, taking pictures. I also thoroughly enjoyed doing all of the Tenement Museum walking tours in the East Village as well as both reading and listening to many of the interviews from the Oral History Project. They brought me to tears so often, but they were also fascinating in how differently they each viewed their time at Ellis Island and entering America for the first time. It was really something.

Learn more about The Next Ship Home on Sourcebooks, through the book preview below, or on Heather’s website.