It's not the deepest of books - our narrator, in her comfortable present, looks back on her uncomfortable childhood where her mom was depressed and her brother was a drug addict. But, rather than show any insight into these subjects, that's about all we get - very surface-level descriptions of serious things. And that's it - there's no real story, just a lot of repetition and slow, uninteresting writing. Disappointing after I've heard so much good stuff about this one.

Brilliant, beautiful and touching. A masterpiece by a great writer who digs deep into the soul. It is a great exploration of science and religion and the meaning of being a parent and child. As well as what addiction is and what it is to be different in a racist American south. So many levels.

4.5 stars, rounded up.

Yaa Gyasi's Homegoing was one of my favourite books of 2018 (which was when I read it although it had come out two years earlier). So, when I saw this on netgalley, I jumped at the chance of getting a free copy in exchange for an honest review. Indeed, Transcendent Kingdom does not disappoint. It is a beautifully written, heartfelt meditation on migration, addiction and broken familes.

The book tells the story of Gifty, a young Ghanaian girl born in the United States where her mother had migrated from Ghana after having been randomnly selected for permanent residency. The mother and Gifty's elder brother go first, and after some time Gifty's father follows them. Gifty, the narrator, tells the story of the difficulties and racism the family encounters in the US. They can't find work, or, when they do, they have to suffer racial slurs and in-your-face racism. Money is never enough and God is their only support in their new country. Until the father gives up trying to make a new life for himself in this country of dreams and returns to Ghana, where "neighbors will greet you instead of turning their heads away like they don't know you", "where you can eat food fresh from the ground. Corn, hard in its cob, not soft like the spirits of these people".

Yet, despite the difficulties, the mother perseveres. She's like a rock in a stormy sea buttressed by her faith in God and her Evangelical church, whose services she attends every Sunday, her only day off after working double shifts the rest of the week. Mother, Ma or the The Black Mamba, as young Gifty calls her in her diary, is not your average American mother. She's tough with her children, with no time for play and games. Yet, the relationship between this formidable mother and an equally formidable daughter, Gifty, who will go on to study neuroscience at Stanford, is the backbone of this book.

When Nana, Gifty's older brother, is injured at a basketball game, the doctor prescribes OxyContin. But Nana continues taking OxyContin long after the injured knee heals. Thus starts a nightmarish journey with Gifty and her mother trying to deal with Nana's addiction, looking for him when he doesn't show up at home, booking him in rehab clinics, tring to make sense of this disaster that has befallen them.

The narrative goes back and forth between past and present, seamlessly interweaving Gifty's memories of the traumatic events she experienced and her current state (PhD researcher at Stanford). How does an 11-year-old ever manage to deal with her borther's addiction and also care for a mother who has lost the will to live? How does the family deal with unbearable loss when there is no one around to ask for help and even the pastor of their church drags his feet? How to stake out one's identity when the congregants of their own church whisper to each other that "their kind" has a tendency to drug-taking, which is why there is so much crime? And more importantly, how does bereavement and grief affect the life and career choices of a young girl who shouldn't have had to deal with any of this?

I totally loved this book, the way it was told going back and forth, unfolding as we get to understand Gifty's choices (for example, her decision to specialise in neurosience and in particular study the connection between desire and restraint), feel her loss and anger, her grief and sadness. Above all, we get to see the impossibility of putting things right. No one and nothing can put things right for this mother who left everything behind for a better life and yet, in her new country, get sto lose the people she loves most. This is not a story of redemption. Nothing, literally nothing can make up for the things lost.

I don't think this place was everything my mother hoped for when she asked God where she should go to give her son the world. Though she didn't ford a river of hike across mountians, she did what so many pioneers before her had done, travelled recklessly, curiously, into the unknown in the hopes of finding something that little bit better. And like them she suffered and she persevered, perhaps in equal measure.

I have to say I found the ending deflating and disappointing. To me it felt as if Gyasi had to make the story complete, and thus she hastened to add a husband and the coming-true of a dream that doesn't fit (a big house, a swimming pool, a remarkable career in science). The formidable mother ends her days quietly, the daughter re-discovers her long-lost faith in God and prayer. I think this was a very powerful book that deserved a different ending, less rushed and more thoughful.

My thanks to netgalley and Alfred A. Knopf for the advance copy.

I adored Yaa Gyasi's Homegoing which was a family saga brilliantly told in 300 pages. In her latest, Transcendent Kingdom, we follow a young woman Gifty through grief, and despair, while tracing her roots from Ghana to Alabama. As a major theme, it also deals with the internal struggles a believer faces—between Christian faith and science.

-I enjoyed reading Gifty's scientific work and the struggles she faces between what she was brought up on and her present ideas of science. It was interesting to see her scientific work on a professional level and her personal life—affected by her mother's illness and brother's death as a result of addiction.
- Gifty's mother is also a complex character built with trauma and secrets. "When she spoke Fante on phpne with her friends, she became like a girl again, giggling amd gossipping. WHen she spoke Twi to me (Gifty) she was her mother-self, stern and scary, warm. In English she was meek. She stumbled and was embarassed, and so to hide it she demurred."
-I also liked the scientific bits and research woven into the novel. For example there is a mention of "a 2015 study by TM Luhrmann, R. Padmavati, H Tharoor and A Osei, that schizophrenics in India and Ghana hear voices that are kinder and more benevolent than the voices heard by schizophrenics in America"

However, I didn't love Transcendent Kingdom as much as Homegoing;
- there is a lot of backstory which sometimes feels overwhelming to the progression of the plot.
- this book might speak more to those who enjoy reading about impact of faith and Christianity in their life.
- Even in the backstory, there are occaional letters, like diary entries, that I thought distracts us from the main story.
- Overall the structure isn't tightly wound. Not that, it is a problem. I do enjoy novels with leniently bound structures. But mentioning it here for those who are looking for a repetition of Yaa Gyasi's first novel.

I was able to appreciate Gifty's complex character. But I also feel this might not be everybody's cup of tea.

In an eloquent and precise prose Yaa Gyasi interrogates a young woman’s relationship to her family, her faith, her past, and her self. Her brother’s addiction and her mother’s depression have irrevocably shaped Gifty, the protagonist and narrator of Transcendent Kingdom, who is now a sixth-year PhD candidate in neuroscience at Stanford. Her quiet and controlled existence is disrupted by the arrival of her mother, who has once again succumbed to a depressive state, barely responding to the world around her, let alone taking notice of her daughter. Gifty, who spends most of her time in her lab, where she’s researching the neural circuits of reward seeking behaviour (by experimenting on mice) finds herself looking back to her childhood, her college years and her first years at Stanford.
Throughout the course of the novel Gyasi weaves together Gifty’s past and present, delineating her self-divide and her fragile relationship to her mother.
Gifty’s recollection of her childhood is free of sentimentality, and she’s very much matter-of-fact when it comes to recounting her brother’s addiction to OxyContin, the racism she and her family are exposed to in America, the lack of support they receive (“They just watched us with some curiosity. We were three black people in distress. Nothing to see.”), especially from the members of their church.
We also learn of her parents’ immigration from Ghana to Alabama, her father’s disconnect from his new home, her mother’s desire to fit in and adapt, the rift caused by their opposing stances (wanting to return to Ghana/wanting to remain in America). After her father’s return to Ghana, Gifty’s mother spends most of her time working in order to keep the family afloat, so it is Nana who becomes the central figure in her life. In spite of their age gap and their sibling spats, the two are very close, and Gifty looks up to her brother. An injury occurred while playing basketball lands Nana in hospital where a doctor prescribes him OxyContin for the pain. In the following years Gifty witnesses her brother’s spiralling further into addiction, while her mother desperately tries to ‘save’ him.
While these experiences have affected Gifty’s relationship to her faith, and she’s somewhat embarrassed when reading her old diary entries, in which she pleads for divine intervention, as an adult Gifty finds herself craving that ardor.
In college she struggles between wanting to be alone and wanting to connect with others. Her background causes some of her science peers to make scoffing remarks or prejudiced presumptions, and the few people who try to get close to her are inevitably pushed away.

Throughout the course of the narrative Gyasi shows how time and again Gifty is made to feel as if she cannot possibly find comfort in both science and religion. Yet, for Gifty, the two are not in opposition: “[T]his tension, this idea that one must necessarily choose between science and religion, is false. I used to see the world through a God lens, and when that lens clouded, I turned to science. Both became, for me, valuable ways of seeing, but ultimately both have failed to fully satisfy in their aim: to make clear, to make meaning.”
Given that her childhood was disrupted by her father’s departure, her brother’s addiction, and her mother’s depression, isn’t it natural for Gifty to wonder ‘why?’. Why did her brother become an addict? Why is her mother depressed? Her search for answers, for a reason, for the ability to discern cause and effect, fuels her studies and in many ways her faith. Once she finds herself once again with her mother however her resolve not to talk or reveal her past is tested.
This novel tells an emotionally devastating tale about love, forgiveness, guilt, pain, and identity. Reading this novel made my heart ache. Addiction and depression have left their mark on my family, and Gifty’s experiences hit too close to home. And yet, however upsetting it was to read about the insidiousness of addiction and depression, Gyasi incisive observations and wisdoms assuage my uneasiness.
Gyasi exerts perfect control of her prose as she navigates Gifty’s childhood and adulthood. Her restrained style perfectly reflects Gifty’s self-restraint. She offers piercing meditations on family, philosophy, science, and faith, and Gifty’s quiet meditations on these subjects are articulated in a meticulous yet striking way.
I’m not sure what else I can add other than I was (am) in awe of this book. It made me feel seen and understood.