A novel of fractured family and the search to protect—or discard—what unites them.

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Set in Brooklyn, Cuba, and mostly Jamaica, The House of Plain Truth traces one older woman's decision to pursue and hold onto what has deep meaning to her—in her blood and in her bones. What does it look like to uphold the wishes of those who have departed the world and why is it that the most unlikely characters crystallize what matters most? 

When Pearline leaves her life in Brooklyn and returns to her childhood home of Jamaica to care for her dying father, Rupert, she leaves her grown daughter to cope, overwhelmed, with her granddaughter back in Brooklyn. Yet Pearline feels called to return to her childhood home and soon dives deep into her family of origin. 

Ostracized by her sisters for moving to America decades earlier and only coming "home" due to their father's imminent passing, Pearline must assert her own familial identity as she strives to hold onto the family's home over her sisters' objections. Always lurking in the back of Pearline's mind is her family's traumatic past in Cuba, where Rupert had sought a better life and where four of Pearline's siblings remained when the rest of the family left for Jamaica, including one who was lost for good. 

In lush, lyrical prose inspired by the author's own family story, this novel explores the divided loyalties within a family, the true meaning of home, and what one woman has to sacrifice to get what she ultimately wants.