Howard’s final sin, enacted in a boudoir during a wake, violates so many principles, he hypothesizes, that it has no name. His sin may be unspeakable, but for Smith, the forbidden is familiar territory. She opened her first book by describing a failed suicide at a steering wheel.

But the carnality doesn’t redeem “On Beauty,” and her political message drowns out the story. Smith, like Howard, dwells on the theoretical, often for too long. In her ambition, she weighs down her novel with a little social commentary and a whole lot of rumination on the what it means to be black, and all the gradations thereof. There are the poseurs—like Levi, the youngest Belsey son, who hides an iPod under his class-erasing hoodie.

Levi attempts authenticity by hanging with Carl, a spoken-word genius straight from the city’s depths, and a gang of angry Haitians who sell knock-off Prada and CD’s, three for $10. Returning to Wellington, he sees the school: “The pristine white spires of the college seemed to him like the watchtowers of a prison to which he was returning.” Levi tries to escape, but Smith fails to specify where, and if, he finds a better home.

Despite her lofty goals, Smith’s final page grants little resolution, not at all like her first, sweeping debut which leaves you feeling like you’ve just eaten a five-course meal. She tackles too much—affirmative action, aesthetics, and that thing called love—through the eyes of too many (five, in fact), each with back stories that would occupy the better part of a novel. In her desire to emulate Forster, Smith adheres too strictly to his plotline. What could have been inspiration is simply replication.

Still recovering from her final sentence, one of those constructions meant to recall possibility and beauty and humanity all at once, I flipped through the blank excess sheets, and thought, it’s a good thing Kate the waitress hasn’t read this yet.

—Staff writer April H .N. Yee can be reached at aprilyee@fas.harvard.edu.