Each of Danzy Senna's books, including her remarkable 1998 debut, Caucasia, have spotlighted biracial identity. "Biracial," however, isn't the preferred term in the novel Colored Television; "mulatto" is "better" because "biracial could be any old thing. Korean and Panamanian or Chinese and Egyptian. But mulatto is always specifically a mulatto."
Senna presents a peripatetic Los Angeles family quartet: Jane and Lenny and their two kids. Jane is a writer toiling over her sophomore title; nine years have passed since her critically acclaimed debut. They live in a city they can't afford, which means they're constantly moving. Their latest address belongs to Brett, Jane's friend from grad school, who's on a film shoot set in Australia for a year. For six months, they've been particularly enjoying Brett's carefully curated wine collection while Jane finishes her tome. But her novel is more "major failure," prompting a major risk: she contacts Brett's television agent with "a pitch for a show that was 'particularly relevant at this historical juncture.' Whatever the hell that meant." Nonetheless, being a friend of Brett gets Jane into Hollywood's inner sanctums, with powerful ears willing to listen: "I want to write a comedy about mulattos.... More feminine and a lot darker." Is primetime ready for her colorful vision?
Senna is a fabulously sly, provocative writer, seamlessly focusing race and privilege on virtually every page. Perhaps more impressive is how she deftly avoids didactic stumbles, transforming Hanna Andersson catalogs, Ikea Billy shelves, and Wolf stoves into clever, charged leitmotifs. Until the credits roll, Senna offers brilliant entertainment with plenty of surprising, shocking enlightenment. --Terry Hong