Gifty is the younger child in a family of four who have emigrated from Ghana to the American South. While her gorgeous brother is a sports hero, her father longs to return home and her mother is desperate to hold this family of four together. When Gifty's brother's glorious success on the basketball court falters, addiction strikes and the mother turns inward, and to religion, to find a cure. Each one of the characters tries to find a way to heal the heartbreak- for the mother it is God, for Gifty's father it is escape and for Gifty, our narrator - it is science. But can family love survive when the family itself feels like it is on the edge of disappearing?
In her new novel, Yaa Gyasi, by turning her gaze from the historical to the present, has produced an extraordinarily acute and resonant novel about a contemporary family that is as powerful and as moving as her first novel. It confirms her position as one of the country's most brilliant young novelists.
