Zadie Smith's ambitious first novel, WHITE TEETH, sent its young
author into the stratosphere of literary culture, earning her rave
reviews with critics and readers alike. Although her second novel,
THE AUTOGRAPH MAN, received mixed reviews, Smith's intellect and
creativity have firmly established her as an author to watch. Now,
with her third novel, ON BEAUTY, Smith returns to her fine form as
a gifted storyteller and astute cultural critic.

ON BEAUTY focuses on two families that couldn't be more different.
Howard Belsey is a white Englishman, an art historian on the verge
of obscurity, teaching at Wellington, a fictional prestigious
university in New England. His African-American wife, Kiki, is
larger than life in more ways than one. A big woman with a taste
for bright clothes and a passion for food, Kiki struggles to
comprehend why Howard had an affair with a woman who appears to be
Kiki's polar opposite. Their children --- Jerome, Zora and Levi ---
are each brilliant in their own way, eager to define themselves
apart from their parents and as part of some culture, whether
religious, academic, or "street."

On the other side of the coin (and the pond) are the Kippses.
Howard Belsey and Monty Kipps (a so-called public intellectual)
have bickered via the pages of academic journals for years. Kipps,
a black Englishman, has the fame and respect (and book deals)
Howard has never achieved, even though his conservative politics
couldn't be more removed from Howard's liberal sensitivities. When
Howard's son Jerome, bitter over his father's infidelities and
eager to explore evangelical Christianity, accepts an internship
with Kipps and then carries on an ill-fated love affair with
Kipps's daughter Victoria, a more personal connection between the
two families arises, a connection that grows only stronger (to
Howard's chagrin) when Kipps accepts a visiting professorship at
Wellington. Forced into close proximity, Kiki Belsey begins a
surprisingly intense friendship with Monty's sickly, stay-at-home
wife Carlene.

ON BEAUTY is a broad, sometimes messy novel, full of ideas and
unafraid to tackle subjects both lofty and earthy. The novel's
title is reminiscent of a scholarly treatise, and indeed, Smith
does touch on aesthetic theories both directly --- in numerous
discussions of Rembrandt paintings and in other contexts --- and
indirectly. Her female characters are brilliant and accomplished
but still loathe their own bodies. Her male characters argue
articulately about politics and art but still remain in thrall to
their own desires. The "mommy wars," rap music, campus politics,
love --- Smith tackles them all with her characteristic wisdom and
humor. Along the way, she adroitly references pop culture high and
low, including Alice in Wonderland, Outkast, and practically
everything in between.

Like Smith's earlier novels, ON BEAUTY is ambitious and bold in its
storytelling. This time, Smith's book is a homage to E. M.
Forster's masterpiece HOWARDS END. That is not to say that readers
unfamiliar with Forster's novel can't enjoy ON BEAUTY; when read in
tandem, though, Smith's novel gains even more richness, as it adds
dimensions of race and gender to Forster's ideas about class and
human connections.