a b c McCauley, Mary Carole (2013-03-18). "Gaithersburg author writes 'The Crooked Branch' about the Irish potato famine". The Baltimore Sun. A Christmas story in which warring neighbours make peace after one wife saves the life of the other's baby.

Cummins weaves an exploration of the fierce, primal love of motherhood that connects us all through generations.”— Margaret Dilloway, author of How to Be an American Housewife Ginny, her husband, and three children are trying to survive the potato blight, while continuing to produce grains on their plot of land to pay the rent to their absentee British landlord. Those who couldn't pay were evicted and their homes burnt down. They were left to starve and if any neighbors tried to help them, they suffered the same fate. Evicted and burnt out. With a population of about 8 million at the time, Ireland lost one million people who died in the famine, and another million who emigrated.

Review: The Crooked Branch by Jeanine Cummins

Ein typisches, viktorianisches morality tale. Wer seine Kinder zu sehr verwöhnt, muss damit rechnen, dass sie auf die schiefe Bahn geraten. Niemand sollte danach streben, sich über seinen Stand zu erheben. Vorhersehbar, irgendwie ein wenig an den Haaren herbeigezogen, denn wirklich klar wird nie gemacht, warum Benjamin so missraten konnte, auf einem abgelegenen Bauernhof. Möglicherweise führte zu viele Bildung über seinen Stand hinaus zu dieser charakterlichen Missbildung. I owe special gratitude to Susan Giegerich, Berlin, Germany, for finding a number of OCR scan errors in this e-text. After the birth of her daughter, Emma, first-time mother Majella finds herself feeling extremely strange - almost like she has somehow become separated or disconnected from herself and her family. The usually resilient and self-deprecating young woman suddenly feels isolated and exhausted - feelings which she slowly comes to realize reach far beyond simply being overwhelmed by her recent introduction to new motherhood. Trying to better understand her extraordinary feelings of 'differential otherness', Majella understands that no matter how much they may love her, her family just can't help her in this particular situation; so she seeks out professional help.

The dramas feature all-star casts including Emerald O'Hanrahan, Sue Johnston, Jodie Comer, Emily Mortimer, Rod Hudd, David Threlfall and Julian Rhind-Tutt. Conroy, Catherine (January 25, 2020). "I Didn't Know If I Had the Right to Tell The Story". The Irish Times . Retrieved June 5, 2022. This dual-timeline narrative was entertaining in part and cringeworthy in part. I really enjoyed Ginny's story, a suspenseful drama of young motherhood set during the potato famine in Ireland; however, her descendant Majella's modern tale of postpartum depression just didn't draw me in. Ginny's life had true tragedy and she had such resilience, and every step she took in life was realistic and understandable. Majella, on the other hand, wasn't a well fleshed character to me, nor were the supporting characters in her story. Her husband, what's-his-name, was basically a caricature of the clueless man (honestly, it took him half the book to even bring up medication), her friend Jade had just one aspect to her personality (unhappy), and her mother was horrible right up until she was the best mom ever... there was just no depth there. Still, the story was really interesting and I appreciated how Cummins tried to tie the modern-day arc to the historical one (even if I'm not a fan of the concept of genetic memory, I was willing to buy into the idea for the sake of the book). I was also glad to see postpartum depression as a topic for a book - there should be more of that - but would've liked a more concrete resolution there. becoming a 'mere clod-hopper,' that is to say, a hard-working, honest farmer like his father - Bessy Rose was the Die einzige Stütze der beiden Bauersleut ist die Tochter einer Schwester, die sie bei sich aufgenommen haben. Eigentlich, damit sie irgendwann Benjamin heiratet, schließlich sind die beiden Kinder miteinander aufgewachsen.Nab-End was situated; and, on those occasions, the letter-carrier usually paid morning calls on the various people for was not to have than of all the hardly-earned and humbly-saved two hundred that he was to come into possession of. Majella’s labor is long and difficult, and results in her giving birth to Emma by c-section. Do these factors affect how she adjusts to motherhood? Is her transition into motherhood a particularly bumpy one, or is it fairly normal? Would you describe her as having postpartum depression?

But there was quite a lot that turned me off about this book. For one thing, Majella just isn’t likable. I realize that she is a new mother experiencing some form of postpartum depression, but she also seems to have a self-awareness about her that she isn’t behaving well, especially when she’s engaging with her mother. It’s a situation that has played out over years during their lives, and Majella herself notices that she’s reverting to her moany teenage persona when she calls her mother. I also found it odd that it was only Jade that was able to point out to Majella that the reason her mother is the way she is may be because she’s hiding a huge, deep, painful wound. You’d think at least her husband Leo would have noticed and said something to Majella. Majella seems to be extremely self-centered even before she had her daughter, though she has all my sympathy for dealing with postpartum depression. DignidadLiteraria calls meeting with 'American Dirt' publisher 'a victory' ". NBC News . Retrieved 2020-10-27. Exploring the effect of a secret from the past on a woman who is truly on the edge—of motherhood, of her future, of sanity, of happiness—Jeanine Cummins has written a story that truly resonates. Insightful, suspenseful, and sometimes bitingly funny, with characters the reader will think about for weeks, this bittersweet novel is emotional and immensely satisfying.”Mancusi, Nicholas (2020-01-16). "Review: Jeanine Cummins' 'American Dirt' Is a Harrowing Tale of Immigration, Family and Memory". Time . Retrieved 2020-01-25. When people “ fill in every conversation with fluff, to prevent you from trying to talk about anything real […] there’s usually some super-deep reservoir of hurt under there that they’re trying to hide. And they spend their whole life doing jazz-hands so that nobody will notice the gushing wound of pain behind the curtain.” Die Geschichte erschien zunächst als “The Ghost in the Garden Room" zu Weihnachten 1859 in "The Haunted House" und wurde später unter dem Titel „The crooked Branch“ erneut veröffentlicht.