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Riverhead Books

Colored Television (A GMA Book Club Pick): A Novel

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At a glance

Condition
New
Dimensions
6.2 x 1 x 9.3 in
Weight
2.31 lb
Publisher
Riverhead Books
Publication date
September 3, 2024
Edition
First Edition
Language
English

Description

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 FINALIST FOR THE 2026 JOYCE CAROL OATES PRIZE “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 Caucasia Jane 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. Read more

Specs 9

Publisher Riverhead Books
Publication date September 3, 2024
Edition First Edition
Language English
Print length 288 pages
ISBN-10 0593544374
ISBN-13 72
Item Weight 2.31 pounds

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Top Amazon Reviews

Satire
Format: Hardcover
I wasn't familiar with Danzy Senna's writing and didn't realize that this book is satire. She made a comment in an interview that helped me understand the book (read for a book club) a lot better: she said that she likes to make her characters do bad things. Ohhh - that explains a lot. She was laughing at them. My white guilt hadn't permitted that! (But the majority of the Black members of the book club hadn't gotten it, either). Through the lens she intended, the book is clever. She has written other books about mulatto (her term) characters and terms herself a mulatto. My understanding is that that term historically means 1/2 black by identity, 1/2 white; she is 1/4 black, 3/4 white. and identifies as mixed/Black. She's the wife of Percival Everett; his books are more powerful (in my opinion). ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on September 8, 2026 by January
Very good read!
Format: Hardcover
I saw this book on GMA book club and bought the same say. The book arrived quickly. I did not think I would enjoy it this much. The author does an excellent job at storytelling; telling the complexity of navigating biracial culture professionally and personally. I enjoyed the history in the book and the real and raw way the protagonist grapples with decisions as she navigates this culturally complex world amidst the cutthroat world of book writing/publishing. As a published author and journalist, I understand this world very well! ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on December 13, 2024 by JD
Los Angeles chicklit
Format: Hardcover
The first two chapters of the novel suggest that it will explore what it means to be of mixed race in America. However, the novel devolves into simply being a commentary of Los Angeles culture, similar to the manner in which The Nanny Diaries and The Devil Wears Prada are commentary on NYC culture. Ultimately, like the protagonists in the NY-based novels, the protagonist in Colored Television decides to forge her own path, not part of high-end Los Angeles culture, and appears to live happily ever after. But never having lived in LA, Colored Television interested me less than The Nanny Diaries and The Devil Wears Prada. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on April 6, 2025 by avid reader
Very well written book but disappointed by the ending
Format: Hardcover
I Liked the writing style but I was disappointed beyond expected it to be funnier than it was. I found it depressing because I expected the ending to be better than it was. I expected the heroine to become wildly successful when her book became a television series. She spent so much time on the book and dreaming up plots for the series that she deserved to be successful. None of the success materialized and that seems so unfair. It bummed me out. But reading other reviews, they claim that this industry is not a kind one and the outcome is not atypical. I feel that the author is a bit unkind and critical of white folks who did nothing to cause harm or problems to our mulatto heroine and her black family. I would have given it more stars had it not been for this unnecessary meanness to white folk. I couldn’t put this book down because it’s very well written and I was dying to get to the ending to see Jane succeed and when she doesn’t I wanted to cry., That’s a well written book! ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on January 9, 2025 by Suzanne A Ries
Read this in one day
Format: Kindle
What a wonderful book. So well crafted, with such multidimensional, interesting characters. As a biracial woman myself, I found it a powerful and resonant telling of the complexity of living as a mulatto in today’s society and a sad commentary on the lack of integrity or depth in the industry. I wish we looked out for each other but we are still behaving like crabs in a barrel. I’m glad there wasn’t a schtick happy ending but it still left me feeling sad nonetheless. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on January 4, 2025 by Liimu McGill
Flat language, no poetry
Format: Hardcover
The novel is topical, to be sure, with occasional sharp observations. But its fuel is flatfooted language, that dry conversational stuff found in "beach reads." For so-called literary fiction, the book totally lacks poetry, lyricism, the heights of language. Save for using the word "deracinate" twice in nearby chapters, there's no challenge or bite, nothing to chew on, just airy, easy prose. Ah, well, at least it's pretty short. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on September 9, 2024 by Becky
Unexpectedly good!
Format: Kindle
I was prepared to be annoyed, wondering if this woman, so wrapped up in herself could move on. The good news is she survived, she learned and became a better human for it.
Reviewed in the United States on June 21, 2025 by Amiptc
Read it for the biting wit and the sharp social commentary
Format: Kindle
This book is funny. Hilariously funny. Jane, biracial, though she prefers mulatto, child of a white mother and Black father, and her Black husband Lenny are a financially struggling artistic couple. She hasn’t sold a novel in forever and nobody is buying his paintings. When her second novel gets rejected, she decides to go full Hollywood, hoping to adapt it into a TV series. She, Lenny, and their two kids are housesitting at a showrunner friend’s dreamy Hollywood Hills house, she pretends to fit into this world while she locks herself away in the study hoping some of his success will rub off on her. Jane’s forte is writing what she knows, however, things take a turn for the worse as she attempts to straddle different worlds, an imposter who succumbs to dishonesty and deceit in this community of ambition and avarice, Jane finds herself in too deep. Senna deftly handles the subject of mixed-race identity (she has a white mother and a Black father), but that’s not all. She approaches the story with wry humor and truth, forcing the reader to look intently, rather than away. Though comedy abounds, the struggle with race and identity is at the forefront. Read it for the biting wit and the sharp social commentary. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on October 18, 2024 by carilynp
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