In this accomplished and beautifully written debut novel, Lauren Rothery offers a sharp-edged homage to Hollywood past and present and a knowing look at the tension between fame and art.
Television shifts between two main points of view; Verity, an aging but still magnetic actor whose scrappy art-house days have given way to alcohol abuse, young girlfriends, and roles in mindless blockbuster franchises; and screenwriter Helen, his best friend, confidante, and frequent lover, who has known Verity for decades. A third narrator, Phoebe, an aspiring enigmatic screenwriter, enters the novel as Verity gets the idea to give away his earnings from his latest movie in a lottery. It doesn't take long before the louche Verity has taken up with an actress 30 years younger than him, much to Helen's dismay. The novel doesn't concern itself much with plot beyond this, but readers won't miss it as Rothery's wonderfully layered characters deliver observations on art, vanity, and beauty in prose that manages to feel vintage and contemporary at the same time. Perhaps anticipating an inevitable comparison, Helen notes, "Everybody thinks they're Joan Didion when they write about the flowers or the river."
Ultimately, however, the novel zeros in on relationships as the lifeblood of creativity. "Some people you meet them and you imagine this movie together. The two of you make a kind of movie and then it's over," Verity states. "Other people, what you imagine isn't a movie, because it keeps going. It's television." Stylish, smart, and glamorous, Television is catnip for lovers of literary fiction. --Debra Ginsberg, author and freelance editor