Review: Transcendent Kingdom
Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Transcendent Kingdom is a poignant novel that perfectly captures the seemingly unsolvable paradox between science and faith. Gifty, a sixth-year neuroscience doctoral student at Stanford University, is Ghanaian-American, born and raised in Alabama. Gifty's doctoral dissertation work involves reward-seeking behavior in mice. She watches silently, hopefully, heartbreakingly, as mice addicted to Ensure will seek the foodstuff even when they receive painful electric shocks. Her goal, to understand and break the cycle of addiction, is all-consuming. The origins of her research lie in a tragedy from her childhood.
The novel, told partly in flashbacks, introduces us to Gifty's deeply religious Pentecostal mother, who struggles to hold things together after her husband (dubbed the Chin Chin man) leaves his wife and two children to return permanently to Ghana. The family gets by with income from their mother's caregiving jobs. Gifty's tall older brother Nana starts playing basketball in high school and is initially very popular until a serious ankle sprain leaves him sidelined. Nana becomes addicted to opiates after a doctor casually prescribes OxyContin for his injury. The family is gradually more and more isolated, as they are shunned by the town due to Nana's "embarrassing" addiction. Gifty and her mother struggle to deal with Nana as he descends into the darkness of addiction, and after a month-long stint in rehab has him relapsing in less than a day's time, Gifty writes in her journal, where she writes directly to God, that she wishes something terrible would happen to him. When it does, it changes the course of Gifty's life, her beliefs, and sadly the functional anchor of her mother's life. Already deeply saddened by the end of her marriage and her struggles with her son, her mother goes to bed and seems to still be there fifteen years later. All of this shakes Gifty to the core, affecting her faith in a God she desperately wanted to please and believe in, as well as her faith in others. She tells hardly anyone of the real reason she tirelessly pursues the topic of her doctoral research.
This is a masterful and beautifully told story. It captures facets of the integration of immigrants into American culture, the tandem problems of addiction and depression that are visited upon families dealing with addiction, and the paucity of help these families have available to them. Gifty is a beautifully wrought character I grew to care about deeply. I couldn't put the novel down, as I wanted so much for her to be okay and to learn to trust again.
The audiobook, narrated by Bahni Turpin (The Hate U Give, and Legacy of the Orisha) was simply marvelous. She captures the Ghanaian accents so beautifully. (A colleague of mine in grad school was from Accra.)
I am now eager to read Gyashi's first novel, Homegoing.
I received an audio review copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.
~ ~ ~
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Transcendent Kingdom is a poignant novel that perfectly captures the seemingly unsolvable paradox between science and faith. Gifty, a sixth-year neuroscience doctoral student at Stanford University, is Ghanaian-American, born and raised in Alabama. Gifty's doctoral dissertation work involves reward-seeking behavior in mice. She watches silently, hopefully, heartbreakingly, as mice addicted to Ensure will seek the foodstuff even when they receive painful electric shocks. Her goal, to understand and break the cycle of addiction, is all-consuming. The origins of her research lie in a tragedy from her childhood.
The novel, told partly in flashbacks, introduces us to Gifty's deeply religious Pentecostal mother, who struggles to hold things together after her husband (dubbed the Chin Chin man) leaves his wife and two children to return permanently to Ghana. The family gets by with income from their mother's caregiving jobs. Gifty's tall older brother Nana starts playing basketball in high school and is initially very popular until a serious ankle sprain leaves him sidelined. Nana becomes addicted to opiates after a doctor casually prescribes OxyContin for his injury. The family is gradually more and more isolated, as they are shunned by the town due to Nana's "embarrassing" addiction. Gifty and her mother struggle to deal with Nana as he descends into the darkness of addiction, and after a month-long stint in rehab has him relapsing in less than a day's time, Gifty writes in her journal, where she writes directly to God, that she wishes something terrible would happen to him. When it does, it changes the course of Gifty's life, her beliefs, and sadly the functional anchor of her mother's life. Already deeply saddened by the end of her marriage and her struggles with her son, her mother goes to bed and seems to still be there fifteen years later. All of this shakes Gifty to the core, affecting her faith in a God she desperately wanted to please and believe in, as well as her faith in others. She tells hardly anyone of the real reason she tirelessly pursues the topic of her doctoral research.
This is a masterful and beautifully told story. It captures facets of the integration of immigrants into American culture, the tandem problems of addiction and depression that are visited upon families dealing with addiction, and the paucity of help these families have available to them. Gifty is a beautifully wrought character I grew to care about deeply. I couldn't put the novel down, as I wanted so much for her to be okay and to learn to trust again.
The audiobook, narrated by Bahni Turpin (The Hate U Give, and Legacy of the Orisha) was simply marvelous. She captures the Ghanaian accents so beautifully. (A colleague of mine in grad school was from Accra.)
I am now eager to read Gyashi's first novel, Homegoing.
I received an audio review copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.
~ ~ ~
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