A reworking of E.M. Forster's Howards End set in a fictional New England college town. Two families (one liberal, one conservative; one mixed-race, one Caribbean-English) collide over politics, sex, and Rembrandt. Smith published it in 2005 and won the Orange Prize. The comedy is sharp; the marriages are observed with brutal accuracy.

The case for it, the case against, and the rest of the canon open with Pro.