Colored Television
On sale
3rd September 2024
Price: £22
Finalist for the 2025 PEN/FAULKNER AWARD FOR FICTION and the ANISFIELD-WOLF BOOK AWARD IN FICTION.
Longlisted for the 2025 JOYCE CAROL OATES LITERARY PRIZE, the NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE FICTION PRIZE and the CARNEGIE MEDAL 2025.
Named a Best Book of 2024 by TIME , NPR, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NEW YORK POST, ELECTRIC LITERARTURE, OPRAH DAILY and more!
‘I LOVED this fresh, funny story . . . A true page-turner’ Daily Mail
‘Hilarious’ Raven Leilani, author of Luster
‘[A] gem from Danzy Senna . . . perceptive and bitingly funny’ Vanity Fair
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.
Reader reviews:
‘A fantastic novel . . . funny and ironic and clever’
‘A clever satire of the entertainment industry and the compromises artists sometimes make. If you enjoyed Yellowface, you’ll likely appreciate Senna’s ability to blend humour with uncomfortable truths‘
‘This is so sharp & funny & MESSY . . . I could not wait to see how this one turned out and had a ball reading it’
‘Provides a very gripping commentary on both the literary and television world . . . The story takes such an unexpected turn, and once it does I truly couldn’t put it down‘
Longlisted for the 2025 JOYCE CAROL OATES LITERARY PRIZE, the NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE FICTION PRIZE and the CARNEGIE MEDAL 2025.
Named a Best Book of 2024 by TIME , NPR, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NEW YORK POST, ELECTRIC LITERARTURE, OPRAH DAILY and more!
‘I LOVED this fresh, funny story . . . A true page-turner’ Daily Mail
‘Hilarious’ Raven Leilani, author of Luster
‘[A] gem from Danzy Senna . . . perceptive and bitingly funny’ Vanity Fair
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.
Reader reviews:
‘A fantastic novel . . . funny and ironic and clever’
‘A clever satire of the entertainment industry and the compromises artists sometimes make. If you enjoyed Yellowface, you’ll likely appreciate Senna’s ability to blend humour with uncomfortable truths‘
‘This is so sharp & funny & MESSY . . . I could not wait to see how this one turned out and had a ball reading it’
‘Provides a very gripping commentary on both the literary and television world . . . The story takes such an unexpected turn, and once it does I truly couldn’t put it down‘
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Reviews
I couldn't stop turning the pages . . . Addictive, hilarious and relatable, yes, but Colored Television is after something larger and more elusive, a very modern reckoning with the ambiguities triangulated by race, class, creativity and love.
A riveting and exhilarating novel about making art and selling out, about being middle aged and precariously middle class. As fearless as she is funny, Danzy Senna is one of this country's most thrilling writers.
Hilarious. Senna writes with tenderness about the debasement of aspiration, and renders with acuity the mad place in the mind where fixation and avoidance are joined.
If you thought California was burning before, wait until you read how literary arsonist Danzy Senna gleefully incinerates its values through the eyes of Jane Gibson-a heroine whose insecurity, mistakes, and lies will keep you riveted from start to finish.
Twisty, turny, and refreshingly relatable. You'll read and wonder, 'Is she in my head?' I adore this novel.
A complex and satisfying portrait of a woman struggling with the categories that define her.
A brilliant satire about the conflict between art and commerce . . . Danzy writes with precision, warmth and a savage eye for hypocrisy and moral bankruptcy. This book is a winner. I can't wait for it to be made into a limited series.
I adored this whip-smart novel's exploration of identity and how creative work impacts domestic life.
Funny, foxy and fleet . . . The characters in Colored Television are wonderful talkers; they're wits and improvisers who clock the absurdities of the human condition . . . You'd want to be the last person to leave any room these people are in, lest the door hit you on the way out and you become a target for their poison-tipped darts.
Senna's skilful storytelling and thought-provoking themes make Colored Television a compelling read that challenges readers to reflect on their own perspectives and experiences
I LOVED this fresh, funny story . . . It's hilarious and wise, clever and thought-provoking. A true page-turner.
[An] allusive, artfully assembled book.
Delightfully head spinning . . . The way [Senna] keeps this wry story aloft may be the closest paper can come to levitation.
Exhilarating yet poignant . . . Senna's ungentle satire masterfully explores and explodes the psyche . . . of a woman trying to level up on family, work and race in a post-post-racial America.
[A] tart, incisive portrait-both of the country and of the narcissistic task of self-commodification.
A sharp, hilarious page-turner about art, identity and the cost of success.
[A] gem from Danzy Senna-more perceptive and bitingly funny than ever.
Simultaneously a laugh-out-loud cultural comedy and a riveting novel of ideas . . . Senna turns what could have been heavy into a celebratory triumph filled with joy and love . . . This is the New Great American Novel, and Danzy Senna has set the standard.
The biting, incisive and hilarious Colored Television. . . skewers Hollywood culture while offering a thoughtful take on how creatives balance making art with making a living.
A no-holds-barred satire of literary ambition and Hollywood seduction with a racing human heart . . . With her sharp eye and take-no-prisoners humour, Senna exposes both the specific absurdities of the publishing world and the universal absurdities of trying-and inevitably failing-to have it all.