When Ian and his sister Catherine arrive for their wayward father's funeral in his small and desolate Upstate New York hometown, a secret that was kept from them their entire lives emerges: their father Thomas abandoned two other families, leaving behind two furious wives and several children who never knew their father. Here Lies a Father examines the long-term effects shameful secrets have on a family, and how difficult it is for a young man to reconstruct his own sense of right and wrong, when every value and moral principle he was ever taught was based on a lie.