A NATIONAL BESTSELLER
A GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK
A WASHINGTON POST TOP 10 BOOK OF THE YEAR
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2024
“A laugh-out-loud cultural comedy… This is the New Great American Novel, and Danzy Senna has set the standard.” –LA Times “Funny, foxy and fleet…The jokes are good, the punches land, the dialogue is tart.” –Dwight Garner, The New York Times
A brilliant take on love and ambition, failure and reinvention, and the racial-identity-industrial complex from the bestselling author of CaucasiaJane has high hopes that her life is about to turn around. After a long, precarious stretch bouncing among sketchy rentals and sublets, she and her family are living in luxury for a year, house-sitting in the hills above Los Angeles. The gig magically coincides with Jane’s sabbatical, giving her the time and space she needs to finish her second novel—a centuries-spanning epic her artist husband, Lenny, dubs her “mulatto
War and Peace.” Finally, some semblance of stability and success seems to be within her grasp.
But things don’t work out quite as hoped. Desperate for a plan B, like countless writers before her Jane turns her gaze to Hollywood. When she finagles a meeting with Hampton Ford, a hot producer with a major development deal at a streaming network, he seems excited to work with a “real writer,” and together they begin to develop “the Jackie Robinson of biracial comedies.” Things finally seem to be going right for Jane—until they go terribly wrong.
Funny, piercing, and page turning,
Colored Television is Senna’s most on-the-pulse, ambitious, and rewarding novel yet.
"Jane has high hopes her life is about to turn around. After years of living precariously, she, her painter husband Lenny, and their two kids have landed a stint as house sitters in a friend's luxurious home high in the hills above Los Angeles, a gig that coincides magically with Jane's sabbatical. If she can just finish her latest novel, Nusu Nusu--the centuries-spanning epic Lenny refers to as her 'mulatto War and Peace'--she'll have tenure and some semblance of stability and success within her grasp. But things don't work out quite as hoped. In search of a plan B, like countless writers before her Jane turns her desperate gaze to Hollywood. When she finagles a meeting with a hot young producer with a seven-figure deal to create 'diverse content' for a streaming network, he seems excited to work with a 'real writer' to create what he envisions as the greatest biracial comedy ever to hit the small screen. Things finally seem to be going right for Jane--until they go terribly wrong"--
