Excerpt from On Beauty by Zadie Smith, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

‘No, honey,’ said Kiki. ‘I think we just established that I don’t think it’s hilarious – I don’t think we know what’s happening – this is a seven-line e-mail. We don’t know what that even means, and I’m not gonna get all hepped up about – ’

‘Is this serious?’ interrupted Zora. She yanked the paper from her mother’s hands, bringing it very close to her myopic eyes. ‘This is a fucking joke, right?’

Howard rested his forehead on the thick glass pane and felt the condensation soak his eyebrows. Outside, the democratic East Coast snow was still falling, making the garden chairs the same as the garden tables and plants and mail-boxes and fence-posts. He breathed a mushroom cloud and then wiped it off with his sleeve. ‘Zora, you need to get to class, OK? And you really need to not use that language in my house – Hup! Hap! Nap! No!’ said Kiki, each time masking a word Zora was attempting to begin. ‘OK? Take Levi to the cab rank. I can’t drive him today – you can ask Howard if he’ll drive him, but it doesn’t look like that’s gonna happen. I’ll phone Jerome.’

‘I don’t need drivin’,’ said Levi, and now Howard properly noticed Levi and the new thing about Levi: a woman’s stocking, thin and black, on his head, tied at the back in a knot, with a small inadvertent teat like a nipple, on top.

‘You can’t phone him,’ said Howard quietly. He moved tactically, out of sight of his family to the left side of their awesome refrigerator. ‘His phone’s out of credit.’

‘What did you say?’ asked Kiki. ‘What are you saying? I can’t hear you.’

Suddenly she was behind him. ‘Where’s the Kippses’ phone number?’ she demanded, although they both knew the answer to this one.

Howard said nothing.

‘Oh, yeah, that’s right,’ said Kiki, ‘it’s in the diary, the diary that was left in Michigan, during the famous conference when you had more important things on your mind than your wife and family.’ ‘Could we not do this right now?’ asked Howard. When you are guilty, all you can ask for is a deferral of the judgement.

‘Whatever, Howard. Whatever – either way it’s me who’s going to be dealing with it, with the consequences of your actions, as usual, so – ’

Howard thumped their icebox with the side of his fist. ‘Howard, please don’t do that. The door’s swung, it’s ... everything’ll defrost, push it properly, properly, until it – OK: it’s unfortunate. That’s if it really has happened, which we don’t know. We’re just going to have to take it step by step until we know what the hell is going on. So let’s leave it at that, and, I don’t know ... discuss when we ... well, when Jerome’s here for one thing and there’s actually something to discuss, agreed? Agreed?’ ‘Stop arguing,’ complained Levi from the other side of the kitchen, and then repeated it loudly.

‘We’re not arguing, honey,’ said Kiki and bent her body at the hips. She tipped her head forward and released her hair from its flame-coloured headwrap. She wore it in two thick ropes of plait that reached to her backside, like a ram’s unwound horns. Without looking up, she evened out each side of the material, threw her head back once more, spun the material twice round and retied it in exactly the same manner but tighter. Everything lifted an inch, and, with this new, authoritative face, she leaned on the table and turned to her children.

‘OK, show’s over. Zoor, there might be a few dollars in the pot by the cactus. Give them to Levi. If not, just lend him some and I’ll pay you back later. I’m a little short this month. OK. Go forth and learn. Anything. Anything at all.’

Excerpted from On Beauty, (c) 2005 Zadie Smith. Reproduced by permission of Penguin Press. All rights reserved.