Danzy Senna’s Colored Television is a masterpiece and a gut-wrenching story of one woman’s need to create art through her writing, provide a safe home for her family, stay connected to her artist husband (who never sells any paintings) and all without the creature comforts everyone has. There is a desperation in Jane, a frantic pulling of herself forward, her chin and chest pointing towards what she needs, and this tension and desire is a bolt of electricity throughout. Based in Los Angeles and centered around the bureaucracy of academia and the BS of television writing, Colored Television examines race, class, social status, and gender issues with such a sharp edge you’ll be forever changed.
Colored Television by Danzy Senna, (List Price: $29, Riverhead Books, 9780593544372, September 2024)
Reviewed by Rachel Watkins, Avid Bookshop in Athens, Georgia