1. How do Gifty and her mother use prayer differently throughout
their lives, and especially after Nana’s death? What variations of
prayer do the two women discover in the novel?
2. How does Gifty approach the moral predicament of running her science
experiments on mice? What elements of her faith and sense of connection
to God’s creations are evident in how she treats the mice?
3. Consider the stigmas surrounding addiction, especially opioid
addiction, the rates of which are exploding in today’s society. What
other stigmas and expectations was Nana responding to by not asking for
help to deal with his addiction, and others not doing more to help?
4. In what ways does Gifty take on the role of caretaker for those in
her life? Who, if anyone, takes care of Gifty?
5. Gifty admits that she values both God and sciences as lenses through
which to see the world that both "failed to fully satisfy in their aim:
to make clear, to make meaning" (198). Why does she have to lead with
the caveat that she "would never say [this] in a lecture or a
presentation or, God forbid, a paper"? How does the extreme belief in
science mimic the faith of the religious zealots she turned away from?
6. What messages do Gifty and Nana hear about the intersection of race
and poverty in their youth church meetings? How do the siblings respond
to the conflation of the two—and what does the assumption that African
countries are impoverished or need saving by missionaries suggest about
the colonial power dynamic engrained in our society?
7. Gifty refers to her relationship with her mother as an "experiment."
Are there similarities in the way Gifty approaches her work and her
relationship with her mother? How did the separate events of losing the
Chin Chin Man and Nana’s death affect their relationship? Throughout the
course of their lives, how does Gifty determine whether or not her and
her mother are "going to be ok" (33)?
8. Throughout the book, Gifty struggles to find a sense of community in
places where people traditionally find it (school, work, family, church,
etc.). What life experiences shape her understanding of community? In
what ways does this affect her ability to build relationships with the
people in her life (Anna, Raymond, Katherine, Han)?
9. Explore the idea of humans as the only animal "who believed he had
transcended his Kingdom" (21). How does this idea influence Gifty’s
relationship with science? With religion?
10. Describe the difference between Gifty’s connection to Ghana and her
connection to Alabama. In what ways does she feel connected to her
Ghanaian ancestry?
11. How does Gifty feel when she overhears congregants gossiping about
her family? How does this experience influence her relationship with the
church? With her family? With God?
12. Gifty privately considers her work in the lab as holy—"if not holy,
then at least sacrosanct (p. 92)." Explain her reasoning, and why she
chooses not to discuss this feeling with anyone.