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Transcendent Kingdom
- A Novel
- Narrated by: Bahni Turpin
- Length: 8 hrs and 40 mins
- Categories: Literature & Fiction, Genre Fiction
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Afi Tekple is a young seamstress whose life is narrowing rapidly. She lives in a small town in Ghana with her widowed mother, spending much of her time in her uncle Pious’ house with his many wives and children. Then one day she is offered a life-changing opportunity - a proposal of marriage from the wealthy family of Elikem Ganyo, a man she doesn’t truly know. She acquiesces but soon realizes that Elikem is not quite the catch he seemed. He sends a stand-in to his own wedding....
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Publisher's Summary
A Today Show #ReadWithJenna Book Club Pick!
Instant New York Times best seller
Yaa Gyasi's stunning follow-up to her acclaimed national best seller Homegoing is a powerful, raw, intimate, deeply layered novel about a Ghanaian family in Alabama.
Gifty is a sixth-year 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. Her brother, Nana, was a gifted high school athlete who died of a heroin overdose after an ankle injury left him hooked on OxyContin. Her suicidal mother is living in her bed. Gifty is determined to discover the scientific basis for the suffering she sees all around her. But even as she turns to the hard sciences to unlock the mystery of her family's loss, she finds herself hungering for her childhood faith and grappling with the evangelical church in which she was raised, whose promise of salvation remains as tantalizing as it is elusive.
Transcendent Kingdom is a deeply moving portrait of a family of Ghanaian immigrants ravaged by depression and addiction and grief - a novel about faith, science, religion, love. Exquisitely written, emotionally searing, this is an exceptionally powerful follow-up to Gyasi's phenomenal debut.
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What listeners say about Transcendent Kingdom
Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Malaika
- 2021-01-04
It was ok
Found the premise of science x religion interesting but the story itself was a bit dry. The way the story was read by the narrator sounded insincere. I loved the way she used accents to emphasize some characters though. Bravo on that. Otherwise, I couldn’t wait to it to be over.
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- Richard Stewart
- 2020-09-11
Would have benefited from a different narrator
Bahni Turpin is undeniably talented, but I'm burnt out on her. Let's see more variety of female POC narrators. Please.
9 people found this helpful
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- Bneece
- 2020-09-30
Beautifully written
This is an amazing story that brings to life trauma that the southern evangelical church quietly places in young spirits.
4 people found this helpful
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- Kennedi Marie
- 2020-09-21
Good second novel, abrupt ending.
I was excited to dive into this book after experiencing the author's first novel, however I found myself underwhelmed, especially with the dramatic time jump it seems the book had at the end. It was just...abrupt. I don't know how else to put it. I listened to the book as an audiobook and I literally had to rewind the story because I thought my phone had made a mistake and skipped something with how abruptly it finished. The story itself painted a troubled woman grappling with her childhood faith and what it means for her as an adult who has chosen science as her life mission. It's quite relatable and the protagonist is fairly fleshed out. I guess I was just expecting a bit more after experiencing the first novel. I am still excited to see more from the author.
3 people found this helpful
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- LATOYA LEWIS
- 2020-09-13
A mind book
Being a Psychology Major, this book resonated with me on so many levels from the lab rats, to mental health diagnosis. I loved every bit of it, even hearing another persons testimony on dealing with those you love fighting depression, addiction, and mental health and trying to fix them. Gifty spent her life trying to find cures or something to fix people like her brother and mother......I wonder whatever happened to her after the death of her mother, after Graduate school and did she find out why the mind acts the way it does while depressed, and or on an addiction. Great Read 👍 #Book29of2020 #bookworm #whatsnext
3 people found this helpful
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- Dawn Todhunter
- 2020-11-19
Turpin Reading Gyasi is Close to Perfection
Once again I am blown away by this talented young writer. I will eagerly anticipate each new offering she produces. I hope that Bahni Turpin will continue to narrate Gyasi's books. If so, I will always choose the audio version. These women are a dream team.
2 people found this helpful
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- hawkforgrace
- 2020-10-01
Open up A New World
The intersection of culture, racism, and faith claims are the key ingredients in this outstanding personal story, much of it autobiographically influenced. The faith claims and the clash with modernity are especailly well stated. The faith that collides with knowledge is specifically a very narrow American version of fundamentalistic pentecostal variety, common in the southern United States. The gratuitous antipathy of this faith towards science as well as it's lack of real empathy towards human categories like trauma and addiction. The two categories have much interplay as trauma often causes addiction and addiction will inevitably deteriorate a life so much that it causes trauma to the victim and all who love them. This narrow faith perspective brings a lack of awareness of cultural limitations that could otherwise make the faith more humble. Yet Yaa Gyasi tells the story without self righteousness, and even without dismissing the central substance of the faith, God himself, and even the redemptive message of Jesus Christ. She somehow does throw the baby out with the bathwater even as the lead character walks away from these tenets. This is a rare combination of developed insights. It is executed as a story with depth and layers that will leave an indelible impression upon you. Yaa Gyasi is simply brilliant and the narration is very well done to make it a superb audible experience.
2 people found this helpful
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- Zine Magubane
- 2020-12-04
Boring
If an introduction to sociology class, a biology class, and a religion class got together it would be this book. Too many long and boring recitations from psych 101 type books about addiction. No character development of the mother or brother. No dynamism. Literature nothing really happens. Way too much “telling” and very little showing. Her first book was so good! This was a real disappointment.
1 person found this helpful
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- Selma Incesulu
- 2020-10-05
She did it again!
Yaa Gyasi did it again. Her books have a depth that leave you feeling a full set of emotions. Her story of loss, a search for faith, the exploration of the effects of being uprooted as an immigrant, all of it was very powerful. There were moments where I wondered where the story would go and they were moments where it was almost too heavy, but I still wanted to know where it would go and what the resolution would be. There is a depth in Gyasi’s books that is layered and leave me feeling closer to true humanity. Turpin gives a stellar performance as always. Truly gifted
1 person found this helpful
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- Dr. Blue
- 2020-10-05
Excellent book
This was an excellent book! I highly recommend it to everyone. Simply beautiful and meaningful!
1 person found this helpful
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- Andrea
- 2020-10-05
Outstanding
I haven't read Gyasi's first book yet, but now I definitely will. I knew nothing off Ghana before, and now I want to learn more. And Alabama, well, awful!Beautiful, beautiful writing, a fascinating story. True, interesting characters. I was sad when this book ended.
1 person found this helpful