Transcendent Kingdom: A Read with Jenna Pick: A novel

ne woman's reckoning with her family of origin, its dysfunctional aspects, a suicidal mother, a tragic event with a brother, science, and so much more.I had a feeling I would like TRANSCENDENT KINGDOM (Knopf, September 2020), I had no idea how much I would *LOVE* TRANSCENDENT KINGDOM. Yaa Gyasi is an immensely talented writer who tells a dark story with such luminous grace and compassion.Quick take: Gifty is a sixth-year neuroscience PhD candidateat the Stanford University School of Medicine. She's studying the reward-seeking behavior of mice and the neural circuits in depression and anxiety and addiction, and with good reason. As often the case, many scientists study what they study because they have somehow been touched by the issues personally. In Gifty's case, it's her family members who have.Gifty's brother, Nana, was a talented athlete with much promise, but before all of that, the family immigrated from Ghana to Alabama (and then on to California). Here, we become immersed in the deep south, the unique aspects of sports in this part of the country, but also religion and racism. Still, Gifty is a thoughtful observer, brilliant in her own right, and is plagued with many of her own questions of spirituality and science, guilt, and more. As Gifty grows older, she is determined to discover the scientific basis for suffering--of which she is keenly aware.The structure of TRANSCENDENT KINGDOM meanders and spirals, there is no direct path, and this, I think adds to the story. We see, first-hand Gifty's evolution and journey in becoming the woman she is in the end, because all of these events--our childhood shape us.Told in first person, TRANSCENDENT KINGDOM is an intimate portrayal of faith, science, dysfunction, family, love, immigration, loss, grief, guilt, and so much more. I had to remind myself that this is not a memoir, although I think it's evident the author borrowed from her own experiences, as we writers tend to do.What a gift this book is. Be patient with it--it's a slower, more contemplative read, but provides so many thinking--and talking points--and will most certainly leave a residue.I was reminded, in part, of the work of Chloe Benjamin in THE IMMORTALISTS (particularly the science pieces) but also some connection to Maya Shanbhag Lang's WHAT WE CARRY meets Cara Wall's THE DEARLY BELOVED.L.Lindsay|Always with a Book

I heard about this book on a podcast. I was excited when I bought it, expecting to be thrown into a heartbreaking story ending in redemption, perhaps while learning a little about trauma along the way. The book fell short. It was a decent book, but not at all what I was hoping for. It was kind of a slow story with no real climax and then a sudden ending with resolution. It was meh.

The author carefully leads the reader into the minds and lives of the characters. This one shares the bittersweet relationships between a broken family, mother and daughter, addiction, and mental health. There were times I felt the story was moving a bit slow, but overall, worth the read. I recommend.

The plot of this novel is carefully crafted to pose numerous contrasting life values, characteristics, and situations faced within the narrator’s life. It thus provides an interesting evaluation of the numerous ways people seek meaning and purpose in their lives.At this book's beginning we meet our narrator named Gifty who is nearing the end of her doctoral neuroscience research project at Stanford, and her clinically depressed mother has recently moved to California to live with her daughter. From this beginning point the book's narrative switches to recollections from Gifty’s past life growing up in Huntsville, Alabama. Gifty’s parents were immigrants from Ghana, but she and her brother were raised by their single mother for most of their childhood after their father abandoned the family and returned to Ghana.Gifty’s brother grew tall and became a gifted athlete and was a star high school basketball player. But that came to an abrupt end after he acquired a opioid habit and eventually died of a heroin overdose. Consequently, Gifty’s mother fell into a depression so severe that 11-year-old Gifty was sent to Ghana for a time to live with her aunt.This background partly explains why Gifty’s selected field of scientific research is seeking the physiological switch that causes “issues with reward seeking like the depression, where there is too much restraint in seeking pleasure, or drug addiction, where there is not enough.” Gifty’s academic success has placed her in a world of science that gives little thought to issues related to God and religion which is the extreme opposite from Gifty’s childhood community in Alabama. As a youth Gifty has experienced a spiritual “saved” experience in the Pentecostal church her family attended, and she continues to be on speaking terms with the church pastor from those years. Meanwhile her mother who has recently moved into Gifty’s California apartment has sunk into a second episode of depression and continues to resist psychiatric services prompted partly by her religious beliefs.The following are a listing of the “contrasting life values, characteristics, and situations” referenced in the first sentence of this review. These are the issues I identified in the story, but there’s more than one way to pair these things up. Others can probably identify some that I missed.Academically Gifted—Negative Black StereotypesAfrican Immigrant — White PrivilegeAtheist — Fundamentalist ChristianBiblical Literalism — Liberal ChristianityDepression — Drug HighFacts — FaithFreewill — Neurological ProgrammingGhanaian — AmericanHuman Soul — Human BrainIsolated/Alone — Family/CommunitySaved (spiritually) — Sexual ExperienceScience — ReligionSelf Control — AddictionSpirit Moved — Control FreakWanted Son — Unwanted DaughterThe book’s narration provides an insightful exploration of life’s dilemmas in language that will provide a fresh perspective for many readers. It's a reminder of the variety of ways people can live a life with meaning. Throughout Transcendent Kingdom, the author Gyasi tackles a complex web of themes while moving slowly toward something of a conclusion.It’s interesting to note that her neurological experiments have found a way to intervene in the lives of her test mice to stop addictive behavior. This is obviously a needed intervention for many people, and in Gifty’s case could have saved her brother’s life. A similar sort of neurological intervention could perhaps cure clinical depression. The nonfiction basis for the referenced neurological experiments is contained in this (view spoiler).The book does not say how easily this neurological intervention could be transferred to humans, but it reminded me of the book, Switched On: A Memoir of Brain Change and Emotional Awakening , by John Elder Robison. Robison describes how his autistic spectrum characteristics were temporarily ended with the application of magnetic waves to a portion of his brain.For a conclusion this book's story hops over a couple undescribed years during which all unanswered questions have apparently been resolved, ignored, or perhaps simply left unexplained. It leaves the reader with a happy feeling, but doesn’t exactly answer all life’s questions that have been raised in the book.It's interesting to note that the author is Ghanaian-American, grew up in Huntsville, Alabama, and has an undergraduate degree from Stanford. She has obviously constructed this fictional story around the basic outline of her own life.

I couldn’t put this book down. I loved how Yaa Gyasi told the story through different stages of life. Brilliant.

Arrived on time and in great condition

This novel is, at the same time, both narrow and vast in its scope. It tells the story of one woman, her family and her work. But that story encompasses the African diaspora, emigration, belongingness, how we connect with other people, trauma, bereavement, the opioid crisis, the ethics of animal experiments, depression and religion. At the heart of the story is a question; why do humans take such risks? They cross a desert, or half a planet, not knowing what they will face. They take drugs that they know might kill them. Fascinating book.

Tout comme « Home going « qui m’a fait découvrir Yaa Gyasi, Transcendent kingdom nous transporte à travers une magnifique histoire, superbement écrite et documentée.

Yaa Gyasi manages to tell the biggest stories with a few of well chosen words. I just love her pure style.

Me gusto mucho este libro. Con temas de familia, inmigración, educación, religión, uso de drogas, ciencia etc etc, la autora escribe con palabras muy bonitas e emocional.