Gifty is a medical student at Stanford working with mice and researching how the brain, addiction and depression are related. Her parents are from Ghana but immigrated to Huntsville, Alabama before Gifty was born. In many ways she raised herself, but her mother and older brother, Nana, play very significant roles in her life. Her mother was a deeply religious person, and Gifty must figure out how religion and science can co-exist in her life.

Transcendent Kingdom is Yaa Gyasi’s second novel. It is quite different from her first, Homegoing, and for me not quite as enjoyable. Being neither a “science” or a religious person, some of her descriptions had little or no effect on me.