On Beauty

Howard Belsey and his wife Kiki are preparing breakfast with their youngest son Levi and their daughter Zora. Howard shows Kiki a print-out of Jerome’s latest email about his engagement. Kiki scoffs at the news and proposes that Jerome is trying to get his father’s attention by getting engaged to his academic nemesis’s daughter. Monique, the Belsey’s new Haitian cleaner, enters for her first day.

As the Belseys attempt to get their kids off to school or work, Howard notes his son Levi’s Brooklyn accent, an affectation since none of his children were born or raised in Brooklyn. Kiki wants to call Jerome at the Kippses, but Howard lost their phone number at a conference. Howard prepares for an argument with his wife. He recalls the early days of their relationship when he could throw her around during lovemaking. Now, Kiki weighs 250 pounds and at 52 years old, looks years older than him. Howard proposes visiting the Kippses when he’s in England for an upcoming conference.

The spiral staircase of the Belsey’s Massachusetts household is a record of their family’s history. The walls include photographs of the children, as well as Kiki’s impressive African American lineage, starting with her great-great-grandmother, who was a house slave. Kiki’s grandmother, a nurse, inherited the house from a white doctor she worked with. The Belseys lived in upstate New York, London, and Paris in the years before they inherited their house. Howard is white and comes from England, and his family history is readily replaced by Kiki’s.

Howard calls Dr. Erskine Jegede, a colleague who teaches Black studies. He tells Erskine his news and explains he needs to go to England early; she sympathizes with him because she too dislikes Monty, with whom she has debated over Black studies for years. She puts down Monty’s book on Rembrandt, a book that Howard is trying to disprove in his own edition. Levi, on his way to work, assures Howard that Jerome won’t really get married, he just needs to have sex. Howard has also privately worried about Jerome’s virginity, believing it is evidence that Jerome is out of touch with his body.

Pierre, a Haitian chauffer, drives Howard to the airport. Howard acknowledges the privilege of being able to travel for work, and notes that “the idea that he could no longer gauge the luxuries of his own life” (25).

When Kiki returns home, she sees that Howard has received an email from Jerome. Jerome has written to his father to tell him that the engagement has been called off.

When Howard lands in London, he’s surprised to hear people in the line for taxis ask for East End, a neighborhood that was a slum when Howard was raised in it but has since become fashionable. As Howard transfers through the train system, he contemplates his history with Monty Kipps. For 15 years, and Monty contributed to the same circles of academia. Howard never respected what he sees as Monty’s right-wing iconoclasm. But when Monty directly attacked Howard in an academic article, their feud took on a personal resentment. Howard arrives in what he believes is the Kipps’s neighborhood. He uses the phone directory at a pay phone to find their number, and awkwardly asks Monty’s son Mike to pick him up. Howard finds Mike’s manners rough but practiced. Mike asks about Howard’s university, a small but prestigious school named Wellington. Zora attends, but Jerome chose to go to Brown. Mike remarks that it would be better for Jerome to go to Wellington, to be close to his father. Howard tries to engage Mike in a conversation about how inappropriate it is for Jerome and Victoria getting married at their young age. Mike laughs and assures him there’s no engagement, and further retorts that his parents wouldn’t allow Victoria to marry someone like Jerome, no matter how much they all like him. Mike is offended by the idea that Jerome could have touched Victoria, who is a virgin.

When they arrive at the Kipps house, Mike immediately makes a run for Jerome. Carlene, Monty’s wife and Mike’s mother, breaks up the dispute and assures Mike that the engagement is off. Mike follows his father, angry that he hadn’t known about the engagement at all. Carlene introduces herself to Howard. Carlene encourages Howard to get a hotel room, considering the tension, and to take Jerome with him.

The narrative flashes forward to nine months in the future, back in Wellington. Jerome is moody and sarcastic, still devastated by Victoria. Kiki internally struggles with her own journey to forgiveness; Howard cheated on her, and she surprises herself by forgiving him. For Jerome, it wasn’t only the heartbreak of Victoria that bothered him, but the loss of the Kipps family. Jerome had been seduced by their conversations about Blackness as a pigment, not an identity, and was entranced by their criticisms of race identity as liberal literary nonsense. Kiki worries that Jerome spends too much time journaling and not enough time enjoying his life. She convinces him to join her to the town’s festival. At the festival, Kiki peruses a jewelry stall and tries to make conversation with the Black man running it. She’s interrupted by Warren Crane. Warren flirts with her, but Kiki believes it’s a flirtation borne from her age—knowing that Kiki is no longer a viable sexual option because of her age and new size, men flirt with her because they think it’s harmless.

Warren and Kiki meet up with Warren’s wife Claire, a poet who went to graduate school with Howard. Claire reveals that Monty Kipps is joining Wellington’s Humanities faculty as a temporary lecturer, in the Black Studies Department. Jerome curses and stalks away. Kiki tries to comfort him; she doubts that his family will follow him for a temporary gig. Jerome doesn’t want advice from his mother about love, not when she’s going through her own conflict with Howard. Jerome notes that it’s bad when a family is more miserable together than when they’re alone.

The Belseys go into the city to attend a Mozart concert together for family bonding. Zora and Howard tease Levi for talking like he’s from the street. Howard is annoyed to see Erskine and Jack French, the dean of the Humanities faculty, also in attendance. Howard stops Zora as she tries to discuss department development with Dean French. Howard invites the dean to his and Kiki’s 30th wedding anniversary.

Kiki transcends her space with the sound of the accompanying choir. The music challenges her sense of self, while also providing a twisted comfort. She sees that Howard is asleep and Zora is distracted by her discman, on which she’s listening to a lecture about the musical piece in front of her. She sees that Jerome is crying, and though she wants to comfort him, she also wants to give him space to process his feelings. She’s impressed by herself that she raised a Black boy who could cry at Mozart, until she sees another young Black man sitting next to Zora. The concert ends and the family debates if Mozart is a genius, and what defines genius.

The young man who was sitting by Zora notices that his discman has been mistaken with Zora’s, so he chases after her. Levi, noticing him, helps grab Zora’s attention. Zora notices how good-looking the stranger is. Levi checks out what the stranger, Carl, has on his CD; it sounds like rap but it’s actually the stranger performing spoken word poetry. Carl and Levi exchange phone numbers. Levi asks him to contact him about events around town.

Though Carl is not formally educated, he educates himself with free cultural events around the city. Zora tries to scoff at spoken word; she has secretly been trying to get into Claire’s poetry class but has been rejected. Claire is a big supporter of spoken word and has brought notoriety to a bus stop that doubles as a street poetry site. The exchange between Carl and Zora is awkward, so Kiki tries to brush it over by encouraging Carl to meet Claire, who is passionate about supporting up-and-coming poets. Kiki invites Carl to the anniversary party, so he can meet Claire.

Levi avoids helping the family set up for their anniversary party by going to work. The job isn’t rewarding, but it gives him an excuse to go into the city. Levi interprets Wellington as the prison that many of his favorite rappers allude to. On his way home from work, he notices an older Black woman watching him intently from her porch. He asks her if she needs anything. The woman says she’s seen his brother, and wonders what his mother must be like. Perturbed and annoyed, Levi jokingly invites her to the anniversary party and moves on.

As Levi pulls up to his house, he receives a text from Carl who confirms his attendance at the party, which makes Levi a little embarrassed. Zora climbs down from a tree she was decorating and yells across the street at a woman she believes is watching them. Levi tells his family about the older Black woman, whom he believes his profiling him, but they’re distracted by other things, such as Kiki forgetting to invite the Kippses and Howard insisting she doesn’t need to. Levi cusses at his mom and she smacks him. Zora and Howard take a break from the tension by playing a game of chess. Kiki admires their intellectualism, then writes a note to the Kippses inviting them to the party.

Kiki walks over to the new address of the Kippses to deliver the invitation. She sees the same Black woman on the porch who Levi encountered. Kiki introduces herself and Carlene compliments her on her sons. Carlene welcomes Kiki onto her porch, stating that their husbands’ feuds shouldn’t get in the way of the women getting to know one another. Carlene asks for Kiki’s opinion on her house; Carlene finds it cold and without history, like most American houses. Though she has often criticized her country, Kiki feels defensive. Kiki tells Carlene about the ugly history of her house, which Carlene finds rude. A man accidentally set fire to himself in the house, killing himself and leaving the house available.

Kiki tells Carlene about the party, and Carlene confirms that her family will attend. They have a small but polite dispute about the intellectual differences between men and women. Carlene walks Kiki out but needs her help walking as far as the gate. As Kiki leaves, Carlene points out her new garden, which she will tend to make up for the lack of history in her new home.

When Kiki returns home, she sees that the first guest has arrived. She admires the way this guest, a visiting lecturer named Christian, makes Howard feel. The conversation with Carlene has made Kiki socially exhausted. Howard introduces Kiki to Meredith, Christian’s friend. Meredith is interested in costumes and is wearing a startling outfit for the party. Christian and Meredith present Kiki with an anniversary gift; a Shakespearean poem decorated by Meredith. As more guests arrive, Howard grumbles that none of his children are around to show everyone their family. In a private moment, Howard gropes at Kiki. Though she’s chosen to forgive him his marital indiscretions, they haven’t had sex yet. Kiki tells Howard that she invited the Kipps family.

Carl arrives, but Howard doesn’t recognize him and attempts to turn him away. Carl is embarrassed because he only came after Levi called him and sent him several reminders about the party. Carl walks away.

Howard spends the party successfully attempting to be charming. Around 10 o’clock, after giving his required speech, Howard sees Levi swimming in the pool. He sees Kiki talking with her nurse friends from work; he’s grateful that Kiki didn’t tell everyone about his affair. He was caught because Kiki found a condom in his pocket. He lied to her about having a one-night stand but is comforted that his dishonesty won him forgiveness.

Zora opens the door to the Kipps family. Mike tells her that he’s only in the U.S. for holiday. Zora tells them that she’s studying Art History. Monty declares that he has the largest private collection of Haitian art; that he’s protecting Black art. Victoria rolls her eyes at her father and says she doesn’t like his art, surprising Zora. When Kiki greets the family, she notices Carlene’s absence. Kiki navigates an awkward greeting between Monty and Howard. Howard gets trapped in a conversation with an art curator and a man from the Rembrandt Appreciation; from afar, he sees Monty surrounded by members of the Black Studies department, including Erskine’s wife, an attractive but rough woman named Caroline.

Claire saves Howard from his conversation and asks him to introduce her to Monty. Howard feels a pang being so close to Claire, whom he had a three-month affair with before she went to Italy for the summer and got married. Kiki notes their proximity, and Howard knows he’s been discovered. Claire and Kiki chat about Monty, whose anti-affirmative action stance Kiki notes with derision. When Claire steps away, Kiki tells Howard he can stay in the house, but he’ll never be able to touch her again. Kiki hadn’t known, until the knowing look between spouses, that Claire was the woman he had an affair with. What’s more, though Howard said his affair lasted one night, Kiki remembers how Claire and Howard worked together on Wellington’s Affirmative Action Committee, meaning they spent a lot of alone time together.