I wanted to like Danzy Senna’s Colored Television (Riverhead Books 2024) more than I did. Perhaps I’ve unfairly held her work up to that of her husband’s (Percival Everett), but I felt the novel missed its mark. There’s some fantastic stuff here, particularly with the build up of Jane and pacing of the novel, but so much is underdeveloped and lacking development – which may be intentional as part of Jane’s own bias.
Both Jane and her artist husband, Lenny, are extremely unlikable. Jane is working on her second novel – she’s been working on it for a decade. They’ve spent the past year staying at her friend’s house, housing sitting for Brett while he’s on set in Australia. It’s easy to pretend his home and life is her’s. She drinks his wine, wears his wife’s clothes, and imagines a world where his successes are her’s. But Brett is coming back and while she’s finally finished her novel, her agent and editor remain unimpressed. So, Jane gets a little desperate in a now or never attempt to “make it.”
The writing is sharp – a scathing look at layered racism as experienced by the biracial Jane. Jane’s desperation and Senna’s writing gives the novel the taste of a thriller but ultimately doesn’t deliver.
Writers writing about writers is usually hit or miss for me. This was a miss.
A Girl Named Tommi 