Point of View

Transcendent Kingdom is narrated in first person by Gifty, a neuroscientist from Huntsville, Alabama who is the daughter of Ghanian immigrants. She is researching how the brain is affected by addiction. Gifty tells her story from the future, reflecting on memories from throughout her life. Most of these memories are grouped into two timelines, which correspond to the two different times her mother experienced a mental health collapse. In one of the timelines, Gifty is 28, working at a research lab at Stanford University and getting her Ph.D.; in the other she is 11, recalling her brother Nana's opioid addiction and death. In both timelines, Gifty tries to look after her mother while also battling her own demons and trying to determine her own values and beliefs.

One of Gifty's primary internal conflicts is the tension she feels between the religious faith that defined her childhood...