Transcendent Kingdom: A Fresh Black Perspective That Can’t Escape From Itself

Transcendent Kingdom takes us through the parallels of race, religion, and science – A Book Review

What would you do if you could find the cure to addiction and depression?

In Transcendent Kingdom by New York Times Best-Selling Author Yaa Gyasi, she crafts an intimate tale of Ghanaian-Amercan woman Gifty – neuroscience PhD student –  seeking to understand “reward-seeking behavior in mice and the neural circuits of addiction and depression.” This goes hand in hand with her older brother who died of an overdose of OxyContin, and her suicidal mother in her bed, creating powerful parallels between her world of science and faith. 

Originally from Ghana, Gifty’s parents moved to America for a better life, a bigger dream; it turns out it was really a bigger nightmare than any of their family could’ve anticipated. Moving from a small town in Ghana to the deep South of Alabama exemplifies a strong unique contemporary story on race relations in the South from a different Black perspective: Black immigrants. 

We typically see the stereotypical African American (originally from Africa) in most American stories: wealthy parents, pushing their kids to be a lawyer or a doctor and nothing else, and having a strong connection to their African heritage. In this novel, we didn’t see any of that, and I believe that to be brilliant. This family was thrust in – head first – into what it is really like to be Black in America. The worst part was that they didn’t even know what the elephant of their suffering was: internalized racism, microaggressions, and the remnants of a vile American history that really hasn’t ended. 

Gifty goes on a journey to get to the bottom of their suffering through science. Originally a very righteous believer of God, everything changed when her brother was found dead of an overdose, having battled years worth of addiction. She deeply believed that God had failed her. After all, Gifty presumes, what kind of God could there really be if they let her brother suffer until his dying breath, with no hope of return? Not only did this lead to her estranged relationship with Christ, but a new toxic relationship with her mother who fell into a crippling depression and stayed there. Just the two of them now, with a mother that claimed she “didn’t even want her.”

This story was raw, and brilliant, and heartbreaking. I wanted to see if she’d really find a “cure” to addiction. What I realized in finishing this book is that finding the cure wasn’t her goal, and shouldn’t have been mine either. Something clicked coming into the last pages, and I cried. I felt almost a sense of relief and hopelessness at the same time. I couldn’t shake the realism of this piece; this is how the cookie crumbles, or maybe this version of life is not our happy ending, but our blessing. Life doesn’t always get better the way we believe it should, but to feel ecstasy beyond the suffering is to experience life itself. It’s gratitude for “what is”, not “what should be.” 

What’s more, as Gyasi takes us through the trenches of Gifty’s childhood through well-placed flashbacks and journal entries, we begin to understand just how much she suffered, and just how well she was hiding that suffering in the present day of her life in this story. What does Gifty not want us to know about her? Even in her mind, the way she narrates seems ashamed to even speak to the reader, creating a powerful writing prose for Gifty’s charter. Gyasi executed the writing style effortlessly. 

The root of this suffering showed themes of escapism. Her father escaped the struggles of racism physically, her brother escaped the struggles of racism psychologically, her mother escaped her woes of being a Black woman mentally, and Gifty escaped all of it emotionally. 

Not one of these characters faced their lives for what they really were. It wasn’t until Gifty was almost completely alone that she realized that her life was not working. Maybe their reality had been shaped by their mind (brain) and spirit all along, and they didn’t even realize that they had that kind of power. No need to escape at all; if only they knew. 

I loved the duality Gyasi presented between Gifty needing science and religion to feel whole, because we most certainly need our mind and spirit to be whole. Quite possibly, their reality went beyond the physical place, and that instead of leaving Ghana for something new – they could’ve simply painted a new picture in Ghana. That’s why the ending was so powerful because Gifty was no longer escaping herself nor her reality. She just started to be, and to be was to live whole. 

It gets deeper, though, because if they were any other race in any other place, the transition almost certainly would have been more transformative. They would’ve had more money because they would have had more opportunities for their family, they would have been enveloped into a beautiful new culture, they would have been seen. That’s what Gifty’s mother wanted all along, but in America, that Dream is reserved for a different skin tone. And unfortunately, they all had to learn the hard way. It makes you think, was that life forced upon them or did they choose it? Did Black people choose racism for themselves, or was it the reality we were given? Gyasi makes us think long after you’ve put this book down.

More interestingly is Gifty’s perception of Ghana having only gone one summer in her teenage years. The “motherland”, they say. She felt as though Black Americans were more comfortable with Africa than her. She hated it there, and had no intentions of going back, but here we Americans are romanticizing a place  seemingly better than our own. Just like Gifty’s family did.

I wanted more scenes between Gifty and her mother, as this was the premise of Gifty’s present-day narrative, but I think that was the point not to show the two interacting so much. It really illustrated their relationship without having to say much at all. 

Showing immigrants who knew nothing of American racism was intimate for myself as a Black woman born and raised in America. Even for myself, racism can be an elusive thing. So for a family who had no one but themselves, how can you really combat something you don’t know is there? Maybe this was the foundation of substance abuse for her older brother. He did not know why he was treated like a prop, a tool only useful as entertainment and overlooked otherwise. Maybe he needed to feel nothing because what he was feeling was an unknown source that nonetheless began to cripple him. And no father to address this problem for his father left for Ghana while he was still young. And in needing the substance, he needed more, and more, until he overdosed. 

Transcendent Kingdom showed undeniable dimensions, presented strong themes for Blacks along the entire diaspora, and made you feel every emotion along the way. This book may appear to start rather slow, but pay attention, this writing style has a very subtle, “show, don’t tell” type of flair. A breath of fresh air. Ultimately, we’ll never understand the spirit through science alone. Some things truly are not meant to have answers in this lifetime, and that revelation can be freeing if you let it. 

We are all the creators of our own transcendent kingdom. 

About the Author: 

Yaa Gyasi was born in Ghana and raised in Huntsville, Alabama. Her debut novel, Homegoing, won her the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Award for her best first book, the PEN/Hemingway Award for a first book of fiction, the National Book Foundation’s “5 under 35” honors in 2016, and the American Book Award. She lives in Brooklyn. 

This book can be purchased here. (Not sponsored)

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