by Yaa Gyasi
First published 2020
Gifty spends her days at Stanford Medical School running experiments on mice, mapping the brain circuits that drive addiction and depression. Her research feels urgent and personal. Her brother Nana died from a heroin overdose after prescription painkillers hooked him following a sports injury. Her mother lies in bed, consumed by suicidal depression. Gifty grew up in Alabama as part of a Ghanaian immigrant family, raised in an evangelical church that promised salvation through faith. Now she seeks answers through science instead of prayer. She injects mice with drugs and watches their behavior, hoping to decode the biological basis of the suffering that destroyed her family. But as Gifty pursues her research, she finds herself pulled between the rational world of neuroscience and the spiritual hunger of her childhood. The lab offers data and hypotheses. The church offered community and hope. Neither provides easy comfort as she watches her mother struggle and remembers her brother's decline.
Genres: christian, american-fiction, addiction, african-american, african-literature, contemporary, biography-memoir, academic
Vibes: atmospheric, emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: faith-vs-science, family-secrets
Setting: Alabama, Ghana, Stanford
Period: 21st-century
288 pages · Hardcover · Knopf
Content warnings: addiction, depression, mental-illness, suicide