Recent Reviews
Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi
This review was published in the San Francisco Examiner on September 28, 2020.
https://www.sfexaminer.com/entertainment/yaa-gyasis-transcendent-kingdom-is-masterful/
Yaa Gyasi’s new novel, ‘Transcendent Kingdom,’ is itself transcendent. Tragedy coexists with hope. Hope exists only due to the astonishing intelligence and determination of the main character. The book tells the story of an immigrant family from Ghana. It is also an absorbing rumination on the role of science, religion, racism, addiction, depression, and spirituality in shaping human lives. Gyasi’s breathtaking 2016 debut novel, ‘Homegoing,’ described the effects of the slave trade in America and Ghana on two sisters’ descendants over three hundred years. In ‘Transcendent Kingdom,’ Gyasi’s focus is less the arc of history and more the mysteries of the psyche.
The narrator is Gifty, a PhD candidate in neuroscience at Stanford University School of Medicine. Like many who come to California, she carries the hopes and fears of another place - in her case, two: the Alabama of her childhood and the Ghana her parents had left behind. She says, “I’d come to California because I wanted to get lost, to find.” The novel begins as Gifty’s troubled mother arrives at SFO. Hopelessness haunts her. She burrows into Gifty’s bed and stays there for weeks. Her physical presence in Gifty’s life shapes the story.
At Stanford, Gifty studies mice to identify the neural mechanisms of risk and reward in decision making. Such a discovery could help scientists learn more about depression and drug addiction. Her interest in this topic is not random. Gifty’s beloved older brother, Nana, had died of an overdose when Gifty was eleven. This was the trigger of her mother’s descent into deep depression. Even before these calamities, Gifty’s father had abandoned them and retreated to Ghana. He refused to accept the constant humiliations inflicted on black men in America.
Life in Alabama had not been easy. The family had been poor. And each family member had dealt with the bigotry and discrimination differently. Gifty’s father fled. Gifty’s mother found strength in God and prayer in paradoxically, a white Pentecostal church. The power of her faith allowed her to bear the racist insults of the elderly white man for whom she cared. For Gifty, too, the church provided comfort and meaning. She read the Bible, wrote to God, and chose baptism.
When Nana became a celebrated basketball player, the congregation prayed for his success. But that support proved fleeting. After Nana was injured, a careless doctor prescribed OxyContin for his pain. Addiction followed. Soon the veneer of congregational kindness gave way to judgment and shaming. Gifty felt the sting of a congregant’s disdain: “Their kind does seem to have a taste for drugs.” Gifty combatted the pervasive prejudice with her sharp intellect and a fierce desire to be good. She knew it wouldn’t be enough to endure the racial epitaphs, “I would always have something to prove and that nothing but blazing brilliance would be enough to prove it.”
The novel’s power derives not just from its beautiful prose, but its emotional intimacy. Gifty deciphers her family’s tragedies and ponders her relationship with her brave, but broken mother. Gifty’s story is a journey of reflection and healing. Though she has turned to science, she craves the comfort of her childhood faith. She painstakingly searches for the causes of her brother’s fatal addiction and her mother’s complete collapse. Having witnessed so much bigotry, Gifty comes to believe that internalized racism causes toxic physiological and psychological harm.
The novel is the meditation of a gifted young woman laboring to make sense of what has been a harrowing passage to adulthood. Though she seems to be on a “successful” path, she recognizes the high price she and her family have paid. Gifty’s emotional scars cut deep as she carries the pain of her family’s suffering. Yet, by the end of the book, she has healed enough to make a new start. Yaa Gyasi’s ‘Transcendent Kingdom’ allows us to witness the bittersweet peace that comes from her hard-won understanding.
The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
Brit Bennett’s second book, The Vanishing Half, is a compelling, timely and provocative story about race. More specifically, Bennett’s novel illuminates the irrational and outsized role pigmentation plays in American life. Not only in terms of black and white but all the shades in between. By following the lives of twin light-skinned African-Americans sisters, the reality of skin color as a determinant of social status is laid bare. One sister decides to live her life as a black woman, while the other chooses to “pass” as a white woman. Bennett’s story explores each sister’s life and the ramifications of her choice. Not since Nell Larsen’s 1929 novel Passing has a book beautifully explored the nuances of Black Americans’ “passing” as white.
When Stella and Desiree Vignes are young girls, living in the small town of Mallard, Louisiana, their father is dragged out of their family home and murdered by a gang of white men. Their mother and they persist despite their pain. Years later, in August of 1954, the twins vanish from Mallard. After finding jobs in New Orleans, Stella realizes that she can “pass” for white as can her sister. However, Stella’s circumstances make it easy for her to do so. Soon Stella leaves Delia in New Orleans, marries her white boss and moves to Los Angeles. Desiree moves to Washington D.C., where she marries a dark-skinned black man with whom she works.
Though the novel follows both sisters’ lives, the emotional power of the novel derives from the tension around Stella’s “passing.” Living as a white woman in Los Angeles allows Stella to escape racial prejudice and discrimination and experience the privileges of being white. She tells her husband, daughter, and friends that she is an only child, and her parents have died. Yet, Stella lives in fear that she will be found out. Her decision to pass means that she must eradicate her childhood from her mind. Pain, hollowness and isolation are the prices Stella pays for this deception. “At first, seemed so simple, she couldn’t understand why her parents hadn’t done it. But she was young then. She hadn’t realized how long it takes to become somebody else, or how lonely it can be living in a world not meant for you.” 169
Meanwhile, Desiree returns to Mallard because her darker-skinned husband beat her, the hue of her husband’s skin is noted by the residents of Mallard. Desiree and her daughter Jude are embraced and loved by the community. Desiree’s life is limited by discrimination, and yet she feels freer because her choice does not require her to hide.
Stella and Desiree both have daughters. And as the story progresses, these cousins find one another and piece together their connection. My small issue with the novel is that I found it surprising that the twins left their mother and then each other without dialogue. Also, it strains credulity that Stella and Desiree’s daughters meet one another in Los Angeles. However, the collective human unconscious moves in mysterious ways. These instances in no way minimize the book’s powerful impact.
The Vanishing Half is an enjoyable read. Bennett has created engaging characters while educating readers about the nuances of race and privilege. As America focuses on its sorry racial history, this novel provides an excellent contribution to this discussion.
The Photograph by Penelope Lively
The wonderful women in my neighborhood book club wanted to read a book by an exceptional writer. So this month, we chose Penelope Lively's 2004 novel, The Photograph. Lively, a Booker Prize winner and prolific author, did not disappoint. Upon learning more about her impressive writing career, I would summarize her thematic interests:
1)The past never vanishes, but rather is present and shapes our futures.
2)An entire life is shaped by small decisions that seem inconsequential at the time.
3)People are a collection of their multiple selves.
4)It is impossible to completely know another person.
Her novel The Photograph addresses this last theme. Can we ever really know another person? The story opens as Glyn, a landscape history professor, looks for a specific photograph for his academic research. Instead, he finds an envelope with the words written, DON'T OPEN--DESTROY. He unseals the container and discovers a family photograph of his deceased wife Kath intimately holding hands with her sister Elaine's husband, Nick. Consumed with anger and curiosity, Glyn begins a research project to determine if his wife had an affair with their brother-in-law.
Glyn asks his in-laws in the photograph for their thoughts about Kath. They describe her as elusive, glamorous and aloof because of her stunning beauty. Dull and vapid perceptions. I saw a character who was left parentless at 16 and feels alone in the world. She wanted to feel loved, known and understood. Instead, her husband Glyn marries her because of her beauty, her older sister Elaine is distant and cold, her sister's husband Nick is lost and lecherous, and Nick's friend Oliver is feckless. The story traces each of their thoughts about Kath and the veracity of Glyn's conjecture of infidelity. Vague and vivid memories of Kath return to their consciousnesses as they are forced to reflect on their relationship with Kath. It turns out Kath had taken her life.
Yet, there seems to be little remorse and even less reflection.
These characters seem incapable of loving, listening, or taking any constructive action to have helped Kath. With no parents and education, of course, she was damaged. Her family seemed to bask in the charisma of her beauty, but no one seems to have helped her. Her husband, sister, brother-in-law and friend have a limited view of love. They don't assume that duty, responsibility and acceptance are part of family life. Lively has created vivid characters who seem almost hyperbolic in their solipsism. The emotional fall out from Kath's suicide is not addressed. No mention of mourning, sadness, or guilt. The implication is that there wasn't much. Maybe if Lively had provided more context about the other characters, I would fell empathetic toward them.
Penelope Lively is an exceptional writer. The novel's structure is taut and tight. The settings are lush with descriptions of place and time. Her characters are described in great detail. And Lively's agility with metaphors, similes and symbols creates depth and layers of meaning. And yet the novel's portrayal of clueless, distant, self-absorbed people left me depressed. I wanted to call out, why couldn't any of you get out of your selfish selves and help her out? My God people, it isn't that hard. Yes, Lively is interested in whether we can fully know another person, but my goodness, these people were so narcissistic. This book isn't about delving into the unconscious or intimate feelings of another. It is about the inability of a group of people to pay attention to a family member's basic needs.
I am hoping that Lively isn't making a statement about the human condition. But I fear she is.
