The House of Plain Truth

The poet Cicero said, “The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living.” No one knows this better than Rupert Greaves’s living children, as they are faced with his sudden death and a new awareness of the broken trail of his history, which stretches from Cuba to New York to Jamaica. Pearline has returned home from New York to nurse her ailing father, only to hear his dying wish of finding his long-lost children. Suffering from imposter syndrome, yet driven by the call to be her father’s memory, Pearline convinces her sisters not to sell the family home and to fulfill Papa’s dying wish. The reading of his will catalyzes the unraveling of the family that Pearline remembers and the acceptance of an alternative possibility. Pearline’s foundation has ruptured, and all she has are questions. Who is Annie Headlam, how is she part-owner of their homestead, and how will Pearline protect Papa’s legacy? Culturally ingrained myths are ever-present for Pearline, while her sisters forge a bond with these enduring truths. Narrator Michele Dayes, a friend of Hemans (Tea by the Sea), captures the raw emotion and melodic language of the characters as she weaves patois throughout the rich dialogue, revealing the characters’ vulnerabilities, their splintered relationships, and the resolving of a divisive past.