Howard continues his work, and everyone is on edge for the upcoming faculty meeting, where Howard’s attempts to stop Monty’s lectures will be debated. Meanwhile, Levi has been skipping school to sell fake designer handbags with a new group of friends from Roxbury. Claire’s decision to bring in unenrolled students is controversial, so she gets Zora to agree to advocate for her at an upcoming faculty meeting. The young man, Carl, is the best rapper of the night, so Claire invites him to audit her poetry class even though he's not a Wellington student. At a poetry event in the city, Zora recognizes a handsome young man who sat next to her at a Mozart concert. Zora gets into Claire’s poetry class by accusing her of unfair treatment due to her personal issues with Howard. Jerome tries to get his life back on track. Howard and Kiki’s marriage implodes, though they choose to continue living in the same house. Howard’s feud with Monty threatens to grow worse when Monty accepts a temporary lectureship position at Wellington, placing both families in the same neighborhood. The Belseys’ complicated relationship with race is juxtaposed by the Kipps family, who are fully committed to the preservation of Black culture in ways that seem extreme to the Belseys. Zora, the daughter, tries to follow in her father’s academic footsteps but also struggles to find her footing as a Black woman and art historian. Levi, the youngest son, is attracted to Black street culture even though he comes from a wealthy mixed-race family. The Belsey family members are also navigating their Black identity. Though Kiki has been trying to forgive Howard, she is made more upset by the revelation that the other woman in question was Claire, and that it was more than the one-night stand Howard originally admitted to.
Howard has had an affair with Claire Malcolm, a fellow Wellington faculty member and long-time family friend. depressed, and his family foundation is not strong either. They get engaged, but the engagement is quickly called off. During the time of his studies, Jerome lives with Monty’s family and falls in love with Monty’s daughter Victoria. At the beginning of the novel, Jerome is in England studying under Monty Kipps, a Black conservative academic who is in a long-standing feud with Howard. He and his wife Kiki have three children: Jerome, Zora, and Levi. Howard Belsey, the father, is English an art historian at Wellington College, just outside of Boston. On Beauty begins with the tribulations of the Belsey family.
On Beauty is contemporary literary fiction reflective of current political issues and celebrates diverse views of dealing with the world. Separated into three distinct parts, On Beauty explores the theme of beauty through the conflicts, internal and external, of characters struggling to come to terms with themselves.
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