I read the final pages of Yaa Gyasi’s Transcendent Kingdom, and I soiled one page with my teardrops. I couldn’t stop weeping.
For the life of me, the story of Nana, Gifty, The Black Mamba (the Mother), and Chin Chin Man (the Father) transported me into a world, though fiction, felt real. I was immersed in their lives, albeit tragic and heartbreaking, and even towards the middle of the book, I wailed quietly. My quiet wailing was the most visceral form of reaction, which was elicited from me when all the events, that tore my heart to pieces, were happening within the confines of the story.
But I couldn’t stop reading. Deep down in my heart, I knew there was more to the story than the sad reality that Nana, Gifty, and Gifty’s mother had to go through.
Transcendent Kingdom is a myriad of nuanced stories about family and identity. Smacked in the center was Gifty, a PhD candidate in neuroscience at the Stanford University School of Medicine studying “reward-seeking behavior in mice and the neural circuits of depression and addiction” as what the synopsis on the back of the book by Vintage wrote.
From the moment the book started down to its last few pages, Yaa Gyasi, in her more personal, and triumphant approach on family as compared to her epic story of destinies and tragedies in her first book Homegoing, Transcendent Kingdom tackles themes and subjects that are hard to deal with.
But Yaa Gyasi dealt with them, filled with courage and conviction.
As a Preacher’s Kid who grew up at church, I found Gifty’s explorations and experiences with the spiritual and the biblical part of the story to be relatable. I saw a tinge of anger and confusion at the inconsistencies that linger in the air once the congregation experiences something that’s not in tune with the teachings of the Bible—like a Pastor’s Kid getting pregnant, a divorce in the family, and a question about a whole village in Africa who hasn’t heard about the Bible all their lives, and who according to the Youth Pastor in the book, would hypothetically all go to hell.
Written from the perspective of Gifty, the voice of the story that goes back and forth—from evangelical preachings, to science-based facts about behavior and mental illness, to the responses of mice when they are electrically shocked when drinking Ensure by touching a lever, and to the harrowing, and tragic descent of Nana into opioid addiction—the narrative is full of heart.
The way the characters were written were very human. And I journeyed with them in their weaknesses, and their triumphs, their victories, and their day to day lives. What I liked most was how Gifty remembers Nana, one of her favorite persons in her life.
Nana, who easily gravitates towards people, and who is a born athlete is opposite with Gifty, who finds it hard to make friends with people her age, and who has problems with the social aspects of middle school.
As a family who does not know how to express emotions and affirmation, like saying “I love you” or through physical touch by hugging, there were a forms of love languages that were littered in the whole 288 pages of the book.
There was a time when a janitor, after a winning game by Nana in basketball, expressed his sentiments that Gifty and Nana don’t seem quite like family that he even suggested to the two to hug, but the siblings declined. And that when they were near their house, and there was a dark patch of walkway before they arrive at their cul de sac on the hill, Nana asked Gifty if she wanted a hug, and the latter said no. These were quiet moments that give life to the novel.
Dealing with the clinical depression of Gifty’s mother was also told in the spiritual, clinical, and human narrative. It felt very relatable in a way.
Towards the end of the book, when Gifty told her mother, in Twi, one of the languages of Ghana begging her to stop; to wake up; and to live—I wept.
I wept because I remember Mama.
When I was sent home from Baptist Bible Seminary and Institute and after I was diagnosed for having manic depression and were taking my initial doses of Seroquel, there were moments when I could not understand how I felt, and so I would shatter and break any breakables that I would find in the kitchen.
That was when I saw Mama slump on the floor of the house, and ask me, ‘Toto, ano problema haw?’, while weeping. It was the first time that I saw my Mother cry for the longest time. I’ve always seen her as the strong, determined woman and mother who would rally for her children.
And to see her break down and cry, while Keith was watching, tore my heart to pieces.
It kind of woke me up from my catatonic gaze, from my blank stares, and almost, inclusively from my depressive state. But I did not do anything. I just stared at her. I could not do anything about it. So I went up to my room, and for months, my family would bring me my meals and set them on the table inside my room.
And so is this journey with Yaa Gyasi’s Transcendent Kingdom.
This book broke my heart in one way or another. Because for one it talks about the redemptive power of family, and two, it talks about mothers.
One major character in the book died towards the middle of the story. And I thought to myself, “So that’s death.” There’s no dramatic scenes and no over-the-top depictions. When a person dies, they die. End of story.
More than appreciating the lives of the people who matter, and who really need us in times when it matters, Transcendent Kingdom taught me that we need empathy in more ways than one. Not just the hypothetical empathy, the superficial empathy that we show to others, but do not really mean it deep down in our hearts. But the pure, unadulterated empathy that springs from the wellness of our hearts.
When you’ve finally read the book, the people who showed up, were the ones that remain in the lives of Gifty and her family. And the people from church who discarded them because they were thought of as outcasts, were just mere persons—the very same ones who praise when you’re at the top of your game, but are also the very same people who put you down, when you’re at your deepest.
In the end, Transcendent Kingdom is a story about the power of family—and how every person plays an important role in the lives that we very well live, in the circle of deaths and this one, and only, life.
“But the memory lingered, the lesson I have never quite been able to shake: that I would always have something to prove and that nothing but blazing brilliance would be enough to prove it.”
― Yaa Gyasi, Transcendent Kingdom
The Prodigal Kid 