Simply put, author Donna Hemans wanted to know the history of her grandparents. That research led her to create the novel The House of Plain Truth, which centers around a Jamaican native returning to her homeland to try and find her siblings while also learning more about her family’s history.
What led you to write this book?
My grandparents went to Cuba in 1919 and lived there for about 11 years. They went back to Jamaica in 1931. I knew just some of those basic facts as far as which uncle and aunt were born in Cuba and which ones were born in Jamaica, but I didn’t know anything at all about the nitty-gritty details of what life was like for Jamaican migrants in Cuba during that time. I wanted to try to understand that. By the time I started thinking about that as an adult, my grandparents were already dead, so I couldn’t ask them. I wanted to try to understand … what their experience was like. For me, the best way to do that is to write a story about it. I remember I must have been at a job somewhere because I have a notebook where I wrote down the very first words that started me in this process of writing this book. I carry notebooks around with me all the time; that particular one, whatever time of day, I must have been at work somewhere.
Knowing what you know now, what would you want to ask your grandparents if they were still alive?
I would just want to sit down and find out exactly what was happening in their lives when they decided to go to Cuba. I certainly know from the academic research that things in Jamaica just simply weren’t all that great financially. People could go to Cuba and earn double what they were earning in Jamaica at the time. I don’t know what their specific circumstances were, and I would want to hear all of that. I would like to hear exactly what happened to them and why they decided they would move back to Jamaica with young children. It’s the family stories and the personal stories that make things much more interesting than reading academic-type literature.
What would be the message to that young kid who’s curious and wants to know about their family’s past?
Ask as many questions as you can with whoever is alive. Record and write down as much [as you can], because at some point, you’re going to lose the people who hold on to those stories, and you’re not going to be able to ask anymore [questions]. Every single person in our family has stories that can be helpful or maybe they might be funny. But those are their stories — and they’re also our stories. Sometimes it’s nice to sit down and hear what people have experienced and what they’ve lived through — and in some ways, it might just simply enhance and enrich our own lives.
