On Beauty
About this book
"Howard Belsey is an Englishman abroad, an academic teaching in Wellington, a college town in New England. Married young, thirty years later he is struggling to revive his love for his African American wife Kiki. Meanwhile, his three teenage children - Jerome, Zora and Levi - are each seeking the passions, ideals and commitments that will guide them through their own lives." "After Howard has a disastrous affair with a colleague, his sensitive older son, Jerome, escapes to England for the holidays. In London he defies everything the Belseys represent when he goes to work for Trinidadian right-wing academic and pundit, Monty Kipps. Taken in by the Kipps family for the summer, Jerome falls for Monty's beautiful, capricious daughter, Victoria." "But this short-lived romance has long-lasting consequences, drawing these very different families into each other's lives. As Kiki develops a friendship with Mrs. Kipps, and Howard and Monty do battle on different sides of the culture war, hot-headed Zora brings a handsome young man from the Boston streets into their midst whom she is determined to draw into the fold of the black middle class - but at what price?"--BOOK JACKET
Subjects
- african american women
- atheists
- college teachers
- conservatism
- domestic fiction
- english fiction
- families
- family
- fathers and sons
- fiction
- fictional works
- fiction, family life
- fiction, family life, general
- fiction, general
- fiction, humorous, general
- fiction, sagas
- haiti
- intergenerational relations
- interracial marriage
- large type books
- literature
- literature and fiction (general)
- london
- man-woman relationships, fiction
- marriage
- mixed-race families
- new england
- new york times reviewed
- race, ethnicity, and identity
- race relations
- racially mixed children
- racially mixed families
- teenagers
- united states, fiction
- universities--fictional
- university professors
- women authors