On beauty

Description:

"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: Racially mixed children,  Teenagers,  Fiction,  Interracial marriage,  College teachers,  African American women,  Domestic fiction,  Families,  Fictional Works,  Literature,  Marriage,  Family,  Mixed-race families,  University professors,  Haiti,  New England,  London,  Universities--Fictional,  Race, Ethnicity, and Identity,  Race relations,  Intergenerational relations,  English fiction,  United states, fiction,  Fiction, general,  Large type books,  New York Times reviewed,  Fiction, sagas,  Fiction, humorous, general,  Man-woman relationships, fiction,  Atheists,  Racially mixed families,  Conservatism,  Fiction, family life,  Fiction, family life, general,  Literature and fiction (general),  Fathers and sons,  Women authors

Places: Massachusetts,  London, UK,  Boston, MA, USA,  New England,  Great Britain

Times: 2000s