Overview

A lyrical, lush, evocative story about a fractured Jamaican family and a daughter determined to reclaim her home. When Pearline receives grave news about her ailing father, she abruptly leaves Brooklyn for her childhood home in Jamaica. But Pearline isn’t prepared for a tense reunion with her sisters or for her father’s startling deathbed wish that she repair their long-broken family legacy and find the sister and two brothers no one has seen in more than 50 years. Moving through time and place, from modern-day Brooklyn and Montego Bay to 1930s Havana and back again, The House of Plain Truth is a journey through generational secrets and a family coming to terms with its past. Inspired by the author's own history, this soulful novel explores a fascinating story of immigration, divided loyalties, and what one woman must sacrifice in her attempt to find home.

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Reviews

"""In this book, set primarily in her native Jamaica, Donna Hemans reminds us what a debt the world owes Caribbean people--those who migrate, as well as those who remain to buttress the families left behind. Ours is a story of faith, risk, estrangement, and ultimately, longing, which Hemans evokes through characters who are unforgettable precisely because we seem to be remembering them. Hemans' great triumph is how her prose witnesses history with dignified tenderness and with a clarity which never gets in the reader's way or prescribes what we should feel about the plain truth."" --Celeste Mohammed, author of OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature winner Pleasantview ""The House of Plain Truth is a rich and layered novel. It's not only a compelling family mystery and a moving story of generational healing and reconciliation, but also a profound portrait of the emotional aftermath of voluntary and forced migration. An extraordinary achievement."" --Maisy Card, author of These Ghosts Are Family"

"""In this book, set primarily in her native Jamaica, Donna Hemans reminds us what a debt the world owes Caribbean people--those who migrate, as well as those who remain to buttress the families left behind. Ours is a story of faith, risk, estrangement, and ultimately, longing, which Hemans evokes through characters who are unforgettable precisely because we seem to be remembering them. Hemans' great triumph is how her prose witnesses history with dignified tenderness and with a clarity which never gets in the reader's way or prescribes what we should feel about the plain truth."" --Celeste Mohammed, author of OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature winner Pleasantview"

Author Information

Donna Hemans is the author of two previous novels, River Woman and Tea By the Sea, which won the Lignum Vitae Una Marson Award. Her short fiction and essays have appeared in Electric Literature, Ms. Magazine, and Crab Orchard Review, among others. She is also the owner of DC Writers Room, a co-working studio for writers based in Washington, DC. Born in Jamaica, she lives in Maryland, and received her undergraduate degree in English and Media Studies from Fordham University and an MFA from American University.

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