Literary Black Book Club with Joylynn

 

 

The Literary Black Book Club will meet every month to discuss mostly contemporary fiction written most often by Black writers, primarily women. (We've reserved wiggle room to include a few other good books.) We'll also share a light snack and hopefully some laughs.

This month we'll discuss Yaa Gyasi's powerful, raw, intimate, deeply layered novel about a Ghanaian family in Alabama, Transcendent Kingdom.

“Gyasi’s wise second novel pivots toward intimacy. . . . In precise prose, Gyasi creates an ache of recognition, especially for readers knowledgeable about the wreckage of addiction. Still, she leavens this nonlinear novel with sly humor.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
 

“Meticulous, psychologically complex. . . . At once a vivid evocation of the immigrant experience and a sharp delineation of an individual’s inner struggle, the novel brilliantly succeeds on both counts.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

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.

Contact Genay, at bookclubs@mcnallyjackson.com with any questions.

Reserve your place with a $5 voucher, redeemable on the night of the book club meeting on any product in store.