Does genealogical memory exist? Do the actions, choices, and tragedies of our ancestors influence the way we experience the world and react to trauma, our capacity for resilience, or our psychological and physical functioning?
Through the intersecting story of two women, two mothers, from the same lineage — one living in 17th century Irelande century, during the great potato famine, the other, in New York, in today’s Queens — the American writer Jeanine Cummins explores these questions and formulates fascinating avenues for reflection.
After the birth of her daughter Emma, Majella no longer recognizes herself. Disoriented, isolated and exhausted, she despairs, not finding herself living up to the maternal images she has been shaping in her head since childhood. Herself broken by a conflictual mother-daughter relationship in which she has never felt listened to or understood, the young mother dreams of offering better to her baby.
One day, Majella finds in her attic a diary written by one of her ancestors, Ginny Doyle, a mother of four and survivor of the Irish famine. While reading, she comes across a passage in which Ginny Doyle recounts having killed a woman. From then on, Majella wonders. Is she genetically programmed to fail in her motherhood?
At the same time, Jeanine Cummins develops the journey of this mysterious ancestor. In 1846, Ginny Doyle leads a happy life with her husband, Raymond, and her four children when a plague strikes their farm and ruins their potato harvest, which places the family in an extremely precarious situation. Around them, the inhabitants are expelled and famine spreads, spreading a dangerous fever. In the hope of a better life, Raymond boards a steamer bound for New York.
As months pass without news or money, and her food supplies run low, Ginny makes the impossible decision to leave her children behind and take a job as a governess, in the hopes that they will survive.
After the French translation of the controversial American Dirt (2020), for which the American writer had been accused of cultural appropriation given her attempt to tell the story of Mexican migration, Jeanine Cummins offers a new novel to French-speaking readers. With The twisted branchshe makes the judicious choice of familiar ground, exploring with great precision and without pretense the shock of the arrival of a baby, and the emotional roller coaster that accompanies motherhood, both in catastrophe and in the comfort of normality.
While Ginny Doyle’s story is gripping, revealing, and full of suspense and twists, Majella’s is more linear and less captivating. Despite uneven storytelling, Jeanine Cummins manages to weave bonds between her two heroines, drawing the strength of her story from their vulnerability and despair.