[Many thanks to Peter Jordens for bringing this item to our attention.] Donna Hemans, author of The House of Plain Truth, recommends Caribbean family sagas that expand the definition of "family." See Hemans’s list of the recommended novels below, and an introduction by the author. For descriptions and full review, visit Electric Lit. Hungry Ghosts by…
[Many thanks to Peter Jordens for bringing this item to our attention.] Donna Hemans’s The House of Plain Truth was published by Zibby Books in January 2024. A BookBub review calls it “a captivating tale about the legacy of colonialism and the rippling effects of grief.” Description: With news of her father’s passing, Pearline abruptly…
After decades of living in Brooklyn, Pearline, the protagonist of Donna Hemans’ The House of Plain Truth, returns to Jamaica to nurse her father through his final days and reclaim her childhood home. Instead, she finds herself at odds with her sisters who view her as an outsider. On his deathbed, her father tasks her with solving the mystery of what happened to the children he was forced to abandon in Cuba while working as a migrant laborer sixty years before. With lyrical, contemplative prose and subtle revelations, The House of Plain Truth deftly unravels the economic and political pressures that complicate a woman s conception of home.