Colored Television (A GMA Book Club Pick) Audiobook By Danzy Senna cover art

Colored Television (A GMA Book Club Pick)

A Novel

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Colored Television (A GMA Book Club Pick)

By: Danzy Senna
Narrated by: Kristen Ariza
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A brilliant dark comedy about 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 compulsively listenable, Colored Television is Senna’s most on-the-pulse, ambitious, and rewarding novel yet. African American Best of 2024 Comedy Editors Select Family Life Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Literature & Fiction Funny Inspiring

Editorial Review

Skin deep
My skin is brown, the color of almonds (I did a side-by-side.) Every day, from morning to evening, that is how the world sees me. There is no doubt of my race, I can effortlessly check the Black box. In Danzy Senna’s must-listen audiobook, Colored Television, by the time you finish you will understand just about everything you need to know about mulattos. That’s what people who have a white parent and a Black parent are called, a word that in some circles is controversial. Mulattos often have to announce themselves, or as Senna, a mulatto, once said in an interview, she’s had to become comfortable making people uncomfortable because they don’t see her Blackness. In Colored Television, Senna exposes, explores, tickles, and excites the listener with life, through Jane, a mulatto writer’s eyes. She’s just completed a major book on race. Jane’s husband, Lenny, refers to it as the “mulatto War and Peace.” It’s a hard sell. Rejection sends her to Hollywood, where she’s considered and respected by one producer as a “real writer.” Senna is a great writer. She seasons the story generously with laughter, clever word plays, and cold hard facts that don’t seem so bad when the writing is so good. Kristen Ariza narrates effortlessly as if she wrote the book. What it is, I think, is that she got the message. — Yvonne D., Audible Editor

Interview: "Colored Television" is a razor-sharp take on race and Hollywood

Colored Television (A GMA Book Club Pick)
'I'm perceived as white, but I don't pass as white.'
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  • Colored Television (A GMA Book Club Pick)
  • 'I'm perceived as white, but I don't pass as white.'
All stars
Most relevant
Unfortunately, the author failed to make me care about the main character until the book was almost over. I spent most of the book rooting for the main character to fail because she’s a liar, a cheat, and overall pathetic.

Mid

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so many things I just had no grasp of. I am so glad I shared in Jane's ourney

thought provoking

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I couldn’t get enough of this story BUT it’s never wanted it to end, it was satisfying in every way a book should be. The narration was perfection! MUAH! *chefs kiss”💋

Brilliant!

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The story went in circles way too long. I did not pick up the "dark comedy"... or any comedy at all. Overall I found it underwhelming and a bit of a waste of a credit and time. All that said, I am not mixed race, im just plain ol' white European mutt, so maybe I just didn't get the humor?

Didn't live up to hype

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i wanted this to be different but it wasn't. I ended up wondering how true it was.ķoʻ

The plot.

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