Gifty is a sixth-year PhD candidate in neuroscience at the Stanford University School of Medicine studying reward-seeking behavior in mice and the neural circuits of depression and addiction. Her brother, Nana, was a gifted high school athlete who died of a heroin overdose after an ankle injury left him hooked on OxyContin. Her suicidal mother is living in her bed. Gifty is determined to discover the scientific basis for the suffering she sees all around her. But even as she turns to the hard sciences to unlock the mystery of her family’s loss, she finds herself hungering for her childhood faith and grappling with the evangelical church in which she was raised, whose promise of salvation remains as tantalizing as it is elusive. Transcendent Kingdom is a deeply moving portrait of a family of Ghanaian immigrants ravaged by depression and addiction and grief–a novel about faith, science, religion, love. Exquisitely written, emotionally searing, this is an exceptionally powerful follow-up to Gyasi’s phenomenal debut.
I read Gyasi’s Homegoing back in 2017 and it blew my mind. I’ve written about it in this newsletter before but it was easily one of the best books I read that year. So when I heard Gyasi’s sophomore book was coming out this year, I put it on hold the moment it came in the system.
Transcendent Kingdom is a different book than Homegoing was, different in scope, scale, and story but just as well written and thoughtful. There isn’t so much a driving narrative as an investigation into a life and a family, which people might find slow but I always wanted to know more about Gifty. It might have helped that one of my best friends I met while he was doing his PhD in neuroscience so there was a thread of recognition there.
While I think I still prefer Homegoing, I can easily see people vibing more with this book depending on their reading preferences, as this is more contemporary and thoughtful while Homegoing is more historical and narrative-focused. Either way, though, they’re both great books and well worth checking out.