ON BEAUTY

Zadie Smith is either the ultimate nightmare for a narrator or a gift from the audiobook gods. Her characters are a stew of ingredients from all regions of the English-speaking world: London intellectuals and street toughs, Haitians, African immigrants, New Englanders, Southerners, urban hip-hop poets. And in this virtuoso author's reimagining of E.M. Forster's HOWARD'S END, these characters interact repeatedly, forcing instantaneous switches from one dialect or accent and right back again. Smith's third novel revolves around Howard Belsy, a British academic teaching college in Boston, his African-American wife, Kiki, and their three headstrong teenaged children. Happily, James is up to the challenge and, even more commendably, never stoops to mawkish, exaggerated voicings. Even while ably negotiating a diverse cast, he never diverts attention from Smith, the rightful star. M.O. © AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine [Published: FEB/ MAR 06]