description: Englishman Howard Besley, a Rembrandt scholar who doesn't like Rembrandt, is a professor at Wellington, a New England college. He has been married for thirty years to Kiki, an American who no longer resembles the sexy activist she once was. Their three children pursue their own paths: Levi quests after authentic blackness; Zora believes that intellectuals can redeem everybody; and Jerome struggles to be a believer in a family of atheists. Then Jerome, Howard's older son, falls for Victoria, the daughter of right-wing icon Monty Kipps, and the two families find themselves thrown together, provoking an honest--and honestly funny--look at people's self-deceptions.
language: English
title: On Beauty
titlecomplete: On Beauty
characters: Jerome Belsey, Victoria Kipps, Howard Belsey, Kiki Belsey
genres: Literature, Literary Fiction, Novels, Adult, Family, Fiction, Race, Adult Fiction, Contemporary, British Literature
ratings_count: 80298
places: London, England, New England
awards: awardedAt: 1104566400000
name: Booker Prize, awardedAt: 1136102400000
name: Orange Prize
category: Fiction, awardedAt: 1136102400000
name: Somerset Maugham Award, awardedAt: 1136102400000
name: Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, awardedAt: 1136102400000
name: Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize
category: Comic Fiction, awardedAt: 1136102400000
name: Commonwealth Writers' Prize
category: Best Book in South Asia and Europe
publisher: Sound Library