If you liked
Books like Transcendent Kingdom
by Yaa Gyasi
Transcendent Kingdom is Yaa Gyasi's quieter second novel, a neuroscientist wrestling with her brother's overdose, her mother's depression and the evangelical faith she was raised in. It is a slim, searching book about science and belief. If you want more literary fiction about family, faith and inheritance, these are the reads.
The shortlist
What to read next
Homegoingby Yaa Gyasi
“Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi 2016 review. Seven generations of two half-sister bloodlines, one in Ghana and one in America, from eighteenth-century Fanteland to present-day Stanford. Gyasi's debut and one of the canonical contemporary American diaspora novels.”
Crying in H Martby Michelle Zauner
“Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner 2021 review. Michelle Zauner's memoir about her Korean mother's death from pancreatic cancer and the Korean food that connected them. The breakout literary commercial memoir of 2021.”
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeousby Ocean Vuong
“On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong 2019 review. A young Vietnamese-American man writes a letter to his illiterate mother about his Hartford childhood and the OxyContin crisis that takes his first love. Vuong's debut novel.”
Sing, Unburied, Singby Jesmyn Ward
“Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward 2017 review. A thirteen-year-old biracial boy and his drug-addicted mother drive to Parchman Penitentiary. National Book Award winner.”
The Vanishing Halfby Brit Bennett
“The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett 2020 review. Identical twin sisters from a small light-skinned Black Louisiana town diverge in the 1960s: one returns with her daughter, the other passes for white in California. Bennett's second novel and one of the canonical 2020s American literary novels.”
Educatedby Tara Westover
“Educated by Tara Westover 2018 review. The memoir of growing up in a survivalist Idaho family that kept her out of school until age seventeen, and her subsequent education through Brigham Young University and Cambridge. The PEN/Bingham winner and one of the canonical contemporary memoirs.”
FAQ
Common questions about Transcendent Kingdom read-alikes
- I want more Yaa Gyasi.
- Homegoing is her debut and her masterwork, tracing two branches of a family from eighteenth-century Ghana to the present, a chapter per generation. It is bigger and more sweeping than Transcendent Kingdom, and essential.
- I want the grief-and-family memoir version.
- Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner centers a mother, food and loss with the same raw honesty. On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong handles family, addiction and inheritance in luminous, poetic prose. Both are close cousins to Gyasi's material.
- I want more literary fiction about identity and family.
- The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett and Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward both explore race, family and the past that shapes the present. Different styles, same depth of feeling.
- I want the faith-and-escape thread specifically.
- Educated by Tara Westover is the memoir pick: a woman leaving a rigid religious upbringing for a life of the mind, exactly the tension Gyasi's narrator lives inside. Hard to put down.
The original