The House Of Plain Truth
Donna Hemans
Meet the author
Donna Hemans
Donna Hemans is the award-winning author of River Woman and Tea by the Sea. Her writing has appeared in Electric Literature, Ms. Magazine, and Crab Orchard Review, and she is the owner of D.C. Writers Room. Born in Jamaica, Hemans lives in Maryland.
What people are saying...
“Emotionally honest, The House of Plain Truth is ripe with secrets and sacrifice. Teeming with family drama, and lush descriptions that leapt off the page and rooted me in place. Hemans’ writing is lyrical and her characters stayed with me long after the book was over.”
Sadeqa Johnson
author of The House of Eve
“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
“Shifting ideas of home, family, and culture collide in this evocative tale of memory and reconciliation. The House of Plain Truth meanders through the Jamaican countryside and one family’s troubles in a way that feels unique yet universal in its exploration of migration, broken promises, and forgiveness.”
Charmaine Wilkerson
author of Black Cake
“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 prose that pulses with the tempo, climate, and luxuriant beauty of Jamaica, Donna Hemans chronicles the tragic consequences of intergenerational migration and estrangement, colonial brutality, and the chaos of revolution on one Jamaican family. The House of Plain Truth is a heart-wrenching novel of loss and grief with profound resonance in today’s migratory world.”
Aimee Liu
author of Glorious Boy
"Donna Hemans tends to her words with the patience of a gardener deep in roses. The quality of Ms. Hemans’ pacing is so telling—tenacious and epic—that the reader will remain transfixed from the very first to the very lovely end."
Tara Stringfellow
author of Memphis
Why Zibby Loves It…
Donna’s second novel, Tea by the Sea, had me hooked on her lyrical, original writing style. I was so excited to have the opportunity to publish her next book, which is even better. Donna’s lush descriptions of place and sensitive depictions of the interior lives of women combine to produce the most compelling evocative literature. I can’t thank her enough for taking me on this trip to Jamaica.