Cassie McCullough

Yes, because we also see that her brother had had to deal with a different set of stereotypes about how to succeed as a black young man in America, which was that he was very good at sport.

But what happens to him?

What happens to his body?

I think we can because it happens quite early.

Yes.

And so what happens to her?

How does she deal with it, the mother?

yes it is it's a very different style but as you say it keeps on grappling with more and more things even though the narrative structure might seem quite simple and we have this young woman who's very alone i mean she doesn't turn to anybody

for help, but it's also, she seems to be very much grappling with what it means to be a good person, with questions of shame and other things that are also tied up with their religious history.

So how did the church play out in their lives?

The other thing that I think that's really interesting about the role of the church in this novel is that they go to this Pentecostal church in Alabama that is predominantly a white church.

Now, Yaa Gyasi, the writer, she herself grew up in Alabama and left the church when she was about 15.

Here she is explaining why.

That's Yaa Gyasi speaking there with Sarah Lestrange for the book show.

And you'll be able to hear the full interview with her in a couple of weeks.

But Rahul, one of the things that struck me in this book was how compassionate Gyasi is in the way that she deals with Gifty's belief system.

I mean, she could have been quite angry about it, given that context.

So Rahul, the way that you're talking about this book, you've really engaged with what she's doing.

I'm wondering if this is the type of book that would fit in with the courses that you teach, the sort of thing that you might want to add to a course on cosmopolitanism, on being a global citizen.

Thank you for giving us that whole context for reading this really very interesting novel.