Colored Television
A brilliant dark comedy about second acts, creative appropriation, and the racial identityāindustrial complex
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 friendās luxurious home high in the hills above Los Angeles, a gig that coincides magically with Janeās sabbatical. If she can just finish her latest novel, Nusu Nusu, the centuries-spanning epic Lenny refers to as her āmulatto War and Peace,ā sheāll have tenure and some semblance of stability and success within her grasp.
But things donāt 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 ādiverse contentā for a streaming network, he seems excited to work with a āreal writerā to create what he envisions as the greatest biracial comedy ever to hit the small screen. Things finally seem to be going right for Janeāuntil they go terribly wrong.
Funny, piercing, and page-turning, this is Sennaās most on-the-money novel yet.