The central protagonist and narrator of the novel, Gifty is completing a PhD on reward-seeking behavior in animals at Stanford when her depressed mother comes to stay with her. This arrival prompts a series of reflections on her childhood and adolescence. She says at the start of Transcendent Kingdom that “I had a million selves, too many to gather” (14). This thought reflects a sense of dislocation that Gifty tries to overcome by narrating the events of her life. She discusses her father’s abandonment of her family and her brother’s opioid addiction and death when she was a girl. She then relates how this loss caused a breakdown and severe depression in her mother.

After a traumatic period during which she first has to look after her mother, then is sent to live with her aunt in Ghana, Gifty starts to excel in science. She graduates from Harvard University before moving on to Stanford for her PhD. Gifty, however, struggles with relationships and friendships. Her first serious relationship, with a PhD student named Raymond, breaks down because of her inability to discuss her past with him. Having completed her PhD and shown how mice can be cured of addiction, she starts going out with her lab partner, Han.