Colored Television by Danzy Senna

 
Jane is biracial and has long known the frustrations and racial tension of having one leg on the Black side and the other leg on the White side of the fence. She and her husband and two kids have been bouncing from apartment to apartment for awhile and now have an opportunity to housesit for a year in a posh L.A. neighborhood. They are living the good life with a studio for her husband to get ready for his big art show and for Jane to finish her second huge novel. She is unprepared for the less than optimistic response from her agent on her opus and takes a chance meeting with a Hollywood bigwig producer looking to create a hit romcom about "being mulatto". Jane feels she is halfway accepted by this group, halfway committed to her marriage and halfway committed to her dream of becoming a respected novelist. This is a heartfelt look at hanging on to your dented reality while faced with all the shiny possibilities and false hope of Hollywood. Readers of THE VANISHING HALF and LEAVE THE WORLD BEHIND will find much to like here. 4 stars