The Crooked Branch

The novel alternates between two timelines: the story of Ginny Doyle, an Irish mother fighting to keep her children alive during the Great Famine of the 1840s, and that of Majella, Ginny's descendant, a new mother in present-day Queens, New York, struggling with the overwhelming transition into parenthood.

In August 1846, a devastating blight destroys every potato crop across Ireland overnight. Ginny Doyle wakes to find her fields ruined, her four children already hungry. She and her husband, Raymond, sell nearly everything they own to pay rent and buy a single steerage ticket so Raymond can sail to New York, where his brother Kevin is settled. Raymond promises to send money by spring. His departure shatters the family: Their son Michael, 10, stops speaking entirely; five-year-old Maggie begins stacking stones in the yard to mark each passing day; and eldest daughter Maire, only 11, assumes a composure far beyond her years.

In present-day New York, Majella tells her husband, Leo, a chef and restaurant owner, that she wants to try therapy. Three weeks after her daughter Emma's birth by emergency C-section, Majella feels unable to control her emotions. She has horrifying nightmares about harm coming to Emma and hears a mysterious crunching sound at night that Leo cannot hear. At her first session with Dr. Zimmer, her therapist, Majella confesses that she told a previous therapist her baby had died, a lie she let stand after the therapist misunderstood her account of a recurring nightmare. While searching the attic for the crunching's source, she discovers a small diary stitched into an old coat's lining, bearing the name Ginny Doyle written 14 times on the inside cover. Dr. Zimmer pushes Majella to examine her fraught relationship with her emotionally distant mother and her fear that she cannot love Emma properly.

Back in Ireland, winter 1846 deepens into catastrophe. A starving neighbor sneaks into Ginny's shed to steal a hen, confessing she nearly smothered her own sick child to spare him suffering; Ginny gives her the hen. By March 1847, all food is gone and there is still no word from Raymond. After a chance encounter with a dismissed chambermaid, Ginny leaves her four children in Maire's care and walks to Springhill House, a nearby estate, to seek work. She is hired by Alice Spring, the eccentric, isolated English wife of an absent husband, who discovers Ginny is pregnant but employs her anyway. The estate exists in oblivious luxury while famine rages beyond its gates.

Majella discovers that her baby monitor picks up signals from neighboring households. On one channel she hears twins crying, rarely attended, and the sound of a woman sobbing. She reads the first entries of Ginny's diary, dated March 1848 from New York, and is disturbed by references to crunching, guilt, and killing. One entry describes swinging a hurley, a wooden bat used in the Irish sport of hurling, at a woman's skull, with shards of blue china crunching underfoot. Majella begins to fear that Ginny's violent instability represents an inherited flaw that will doom her own mothering. Her mother confirms that Ginny is a direct maternal ancestor: Ginny's daughter Maire was Majella's great-great-grandmother.

At Springhill House, Ginny reconnects with Seán Lyons, the estate's driver and a childhood acquaintance. Seán agrees to smuggle food to Ginny's children every other night despite the danger. The housekeeper, Roisin, eventually discovers the arrangement but keeps the secret. Ginny gives birth to a son she names Raymond, and Alice Spring becomes obsessively attached to the baby, installing Ginny in a grand guest room and taking the infant on daily walks.

In the present, Majella attends a disastrous mommy meetup group and meets Jade, a young single mother of twins who was abandoned by her partner. Majella realizes Jade lives next door, confirming Jade is the sobbing woman from the baby monitor. Their friendship deepens quickly as they bond over shared confessions: Jade admits she once considered giving away one or both of her twins, and Majella admits she lied about her baby dying.

Seán brings devastating news that Michael has fallen ill with typhus, the deadly famine fever. Roisin persuades Ginny to wait until nightfall to leave, to avoid arousing Mrs. Spring's suspicion and jeopardizing Seán's ability to continue smuggling food. Before Ginny can go, Father Brennan, the local priest, arrives to say Michael has died peacefully in his sleep, with Maire holding him. Ginny is consumed by guilt. Mrs. Spring tries to persuade Ginny to leave baby Raymond in her care, but Ginny refuses, declaring she will never again be separated from her children. She returns home to find Maggie furious and Maire wracked with guilt. They bury Michael in a nearly empty churchyard; the parish has lost most of its people to death and emigration.

A letter from Kevin confirms what Ginny has sensed: Raymond died of fever aboard the emigrant ship, weeks before reaching New York, and was buried at sea. Shortly after, Mrs. Spring visits the cottage to say goodbye before departing for New York. She proposes buying baby Raymond. When Ginny refuses, Mrs. Spring attacks her, then strikes Maire, who is holding the baby, with a Wedgwood china plate. Mrs. Spring seizes baby Raymond and threatens to hurt him. Ginny grabs a hurley and strikes Mrs. Spring in the skull, killing her. The baby tumbles from her arms, and Ginny catches him. Shards of blue china crunch beneath Ginny's feet, the sound that will haunt her forever. Seán devises an escape: Ginny will assume Mrs. Spring's identity, use her documents, and sail with the children to New York.

In the present, Majella pushes her mother toward emotional honesty, confessing she is in therapy and demanding real conversation. Her mother reveals she suffered five miscarriages and delivered a stillborn son named Jimmy at nearly 35 weeks, a grief she has never shared. She explains that her guilt over those lost babies made it difficult to fully express her love for Majella. This revelation transforms Majella's understanding of her mother's emotional distance, replacing resentment with compassion.

Majella's mother then uncovers a reference to a 1930s folklore project at the New York Public Library in which Ginny's son Raymond Doyle, who lived to age 101, recorded his mother's famine story. Majella listens to the recording, which recounts Ginny's time at Springhill House, Michael's death, and Mrs. Spring's violent attempt to seize baby Raymond. Raymond explains that Ginny killed Mrs. Spring in self-defense, assumed her identity to escape Ireland, and reclaimed her own name after landing. He calls his mother "a saint" and reveals she married Seán, who taught the family to read and write. They had three more children, including a daughter named Alice. Majella realizes the childlike handwriting in the diary was not evidence of madness but of a woman practicing her newly learned letters. Her fear of being genetically destined to fail as a mother dissolves.

Majella's recovery accelerates. A doctor discovers the crunching was caused by postpartum earwax buildup and resolves it by flushing her ears. Leo acknowledges how completely Majella's life has changed since Emma's birth, and they agree to seek child care so she can return to writing. When Majella hears Jade sobbing on the monitor, she goes to Jade's door and waits until Jade lets her in. On Halloween, Majella waits at LaGuardia Airport with Emma. Her mother, who hates flying, has overcome her fear to meet her granddaughter. She bypasses the stroller to embrace Majella first, calling her "Baby," a gesture that signals the emotional connection Majella has longed for.