“This book has a more linear narrative than WHITE TEETH, but I felt so engaged by how Smith gradually gets a reader invested in these characters. You want to know what happens to each of them-Kiki and Howard and their children Jerome, Zora, and Levi. The story complicates when Jerome falls in love with Howard's intellectual archenemy Monty Kipps' daughter Victoria AKA Vee. When it ends quickly, Jerome returns home heartbroken. Months later, Kipps is appointed to be a part of the Black Studies Department at Wellington College where Howard teaches. Victoria enrolls in Howard's class and Kiki begins a friendship with Kipps' wife Carlene. The plot complicates with a few ancillary characters and events that pick up the momentum, but Smith's dialogue is insightful and priceless. I'm convinced that the open mic poetry spot "The Bus Stop" in this book is at least partially based on The Lizard Lounge, but I could be wrong. Basically, a retelling of E.M. Forster's HOWARD'S END.”
tbetty wrote this review Tuesday, August 30, 2011.
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