Across The Pond: Torn Between Two Worlds by Madelyn June Jorgensen
Across the Pond Torn: Between Two Worlds is a memoir, autobiography and genealogy. It was written as a sequel to I Heard the Alps Call His Name and recounts a personal journey of resilience and a quest for belonging.
“As his boats sailed away from the shores of Europe towards the West, Christopher Columbus annotated a rather poetic phrase in his logbook on the 3rd of August 1492: ‘Following the light of the sun, we left the Old World.’ Today, many of us, readers born and raised on the old continent, focus primarily on the history and evolution of the USA, and maybe on the matters related to the long history of colonialism in the southern parts of the Americas. In reality, it’s quite surprising how little most of us know about the vibrant Canadian history.”
Mrs Jorgensen’s new chronicle is exceptionally absorbing: firstly because it fills up some serious gaps in most European avid readers’ education about the threads of the many civilisations that made up the rich tapestry that Canada is today.
Part one: Only Orphans Ride for Free follows the lives of two little Métis orphans Madelyn June and her twin sister, Marilyn Joan, whose indigenous ancestors crossed the Atlantic to ‘Turtle Mountain’, or present-day Canada. The book follows the journeys of her ancestors and family across the pond, discovering a new world and bravely facing the challenges of a new life.
“Whatever the truth is, whole generations of children were brainwashed into losing their native languages and culture and forced to take on the white man’s way of life. This is no less than cultural genocide – the inhuman way of eliminating an entire race – they almost succeeded.”
The author introduces us to the criminal Canadian Indian Residential School system administered by some Christian churches. The network was created to isolate indigenous children from the influence of their own culture and religion with the aim of assimilating them into the dominant Canadian culture. The system harmed more than 150,000 children by removing them from their families and their ancestral languages, exposing many of them to physical and mental abuse. Many deaths were never recorded, and the victims were buried in unmarked graves.
The second part of the book –Crossings – continues the gripping story from I Heard the Alps Call His Name. It’s a narrative filled with adventure and discovery as Madelyn June is torn between two worlds in her relentless quest for answers.
Her debut novel is about a mother’s unconditional love and her feeling of helplessness when she learns there are not enough necessary international legal instruments to get her son back to Canada from Switzerland, where her ex-husband illegally took the child without her consent. Mrs Jorgensen writes this sequel with a clarity that is both comforting and imbued with love for family members in two worlds.
The book also covers June and Joan’s own search for their birth family. Later in life, when more resources became available, finding their siblings enabled the adopted twins to fill in some blanks and reconnect with their roots, contributing to the healing process. June’s jounrey to find her happy place, will inspire and captivate readers.
Both parts –Only Orphans Ride For Free and Crossings – focus on the journeys of individuals and families leaving for new lands, not only from a personal approach but also from more comprehensive historical and cultural perspectives.
About the author
Madelyn June Jorgensen was born in the wild and lush forests of Northern Alberta, Canada, in the oil sands trading post town of Fort McMurray, of a Hungarian fur trader birth father and a Métis mother. When June and her twin sister were two-year-olds, a Danish couple, Ruth and Bruce Jorgensen, adopted them. Today, June writes plays, memoirs, poems, short stories and blogs. She loves to travel, paint, yoga, meditate, dance, read and enjoy her life, spending the winter months in Alvor, Portugal, and summers in Canada and Switzerland.
“A chance encounter and a sense of adventure brought me to Portugal. In the beginning, it was not my country of choice.
Not that I had anything against Portugal. I just knew so little about the Iberian Peninsula tucked away in the most westerly corner of Europe, and only that it bordered Spain and had nice beaches. (Columbus used it as a jumping ground to launch his voyages of discovery, one being a new gateway to China – but stumbled instead upon a little known continent named North America.)”
A snippet of this review is shared on the front cover of Mrs Jorgensen’s book.