Regular readers of this diary series know how I like to return, again and again, to E.M. Forster's adage to "only connect" when it comes to looking at literature and the world.
Yaa Gyasi's second novel, Transcendent Kingdom, is an entire book based on that adage. Gifty was born in Huntsville, Alabama, the second child and only daughter of Ghanian immigrants. The eldest child, Nana, is a gifted athlete who people adore. But Nana became addicted, first to painkillers, then heroin, and died.
Gifty's mother, a hard-working woman who toils as a home health care aide, relies on her faith, on her Bible, on her evangelical church. That they are the only Black family in the church does not seem to matter to her mother. Gifty and Nana are raised memorizing Bible verses. Cracks in the facade begin to show when Nana asks the new youth pastor if people in a remote village die without knowing Jesus, will they go to hell? The new guy answers that they will. Nana is done and Gifty feels caught in the middle. When Nana's addiction is apparent to the entire community, the disdain the white people at their church makes the idea of whole-hearted faith seem even more false.
It only gets worse after Nana dies. Gifty's mother is broken, depressed and unable to work or care for her pre-teen daughter. Gifty is sent to spend the summer in Ghana, learning for the first time that her mother has a sister and seeing her father for the first time in years. He went back to Ghana when she was very young because he couldn't handle their new life in America. Like Nana and their church, Gifty is done with their father.
She gives religion one more try as a young teen, feeling that call one night during her mother's illness after years of hearing it but not feeling it. Gifty is earnest and seeking. She wants to be good. She also wants answers.
That seeking spirit continues when she grows up and choose science. She is completing her doctorate when the novel opens, performing surgery and research on mice to try to determine how addiction can be controlled. The transcendent kingdom in the novel's title refers to is something a science teacher told Gifty once, that human beings are the only animals who believe they can transcend their kingdom.
Gifty wants a clear path. She wants something reliable. But she also recognizes that although she can perform experiements and show results, neurons are not the same as what she felt that night she felt compelled to be saved.
Gifty's search, told in the story of her life, of her mother's struggle, of Nana's death, of science and of faith, is told in a clear, calm manner that honors the searching. Gyasi has created a wonderful novel that showcases the human spirit in a way that honors both faith and reason, that is true to both kinds of searches. Transcendent Kingdom is a lovely book that gives space for the questions and does not demand prefabricated answers. It is, overall, a life-affirming story.
