Transcendent Kingdom

Author: Yaa Gyasi
Publisher: Knopf
Page Count: 288

This book is about a Ghanian family who moved to Huntsville, Alabama when their first child Nana was still little, hoping for a better quality of life. Gifty, the narrator of the story, is their second child who’s always in the shadows of her brother. She is in her sixth year of her doctorate studies in neuroscience, mostly working in her lab, to see if there’s a way to alternate behavior towards risk-reward behavior. Throughout the book, she tells the story of her brother’s addiction and how that affected their family, especially her mother, who fell into depression right after her brother’s death up until her last breath.

This book is definitely something different from the other books I’ve read. It touches religion, family, addiction, racism, neuroscience, and psychology. It addresses the issue of opioid crisis and its repercussions to one’s physical and mental health, as well as to the affected individual’s family.