Colored Television Chapter 2: The Psychic, the Party, and the Pursuit
⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.
Summary
Chapter 2 traces the origin of Jane and Lenny’s relationship, beginning with their first meeting at a Brooklyn house party. Jane, approaching thirty-three, was emerging from a string of failed relationships and feeling stagnant. Her sister had gifted her a session with Wesley Brown, a self-styled “intuitive psychodynamic counselor” who specialized in racial alchemy. Wesley predicted Jane would soon meet a tall, dark, funny Black man wearing West Coast shoes. At the party, Jane spotted Lenny—in Vans sneakers and a T-shirt reading “part of the problem”—and believed the prophecy was unfolding. However, Lenny arrived with his girlfriend Lilith, a white ecopoet. Ignoring Lilith’s territorial presence, Jane aggressively flirted, guided by a late-night phone call to Wesley, who urged her to claim her fate. Over the following months, Jane’s pursuit succeeded: Lilith and Lenny broke up, and Jane and Lenny married, had two children (Ruby and Finn), and built a family in Los Angeles. The chapter closes with the couple bonding over what they call “colored television”—lowbrow Black programming like Hell Date—and contrasting their real life with idealized catalog images.
Key Events
- Jane attends a Brooklyn house party after a session with psychic Wesley Brown.
- She meets Lenny at the chip table; he is wearing Vans and a funny T-shirt, matching Wesley’s prediction.
- Lenny’s girlfriend Lilith interrupts their flirtation; Jane feels an instant connection.
- Jane calls Wesley late at night for advice; he insists Lenny is her fated partner and tells her to act.
- Jane continues to pursue Lenny; Lilith eventually exits the picture.
- Jane and Lenny marry and have two children, Ruby and Finn.
- The couple develops a tradition of watching “colored television” (e.g., Hell Date) after the kids go to bed.
- Jane reflects on the difference between her real family and the idealized Black family from a Hanna Andersson catalog.
Character Development
Jane emerges as driven, romantic, and susceptible to the psychic’s guidance. She moves from a cynical, jaded singleton to a wife and mother who willingly reorders her life around a prophecy. Her determination to “win” Lenny reveals a competitive, almost predatory side.
Lenny remains somewhat opaque but is characterized as funny, independent, and perhaps trapped in his relationship with Lilith. He resists clichés (refusing a red clown nose for charity) and values the unspoken understanding he shares with Jane.
Wesley Brown is a fully realized secondary character: a charismatic, opinionated psychic who blends pop astrology with race theory. He positions himself as a savior of Black men from white women and of mixed-race women from spinsterhood.
Lilith serves as an obstacle. She is portrayed as possessive and insecure, but the narrative later notes she moved on successfully.
Themes, Symbols, or Motifs Actually Evidenced Here
Prophecy and self-fulfilling destiny
Wesley Brown’s prediction drives Jane’s actions. She interprets every detail—West Coast shoes, a funny T-shirt—as confirmation, even when Lenny arrives with another woman. Her belief in the prophecy justifies her pursuit.
Race and choice in relationships
The chapter explores racial preference in dating through Wesley’s theories and Jane’s internal judgments. Wesley argues Black men who marry white women damage themselves; Jane frames her union with Lenny as saving him from that fate. The Hanna Andersson catalog presents an idealized multiracial family, and Jane craves that image.
Performance of identity
Jane and Lenny’s shared language around race (“shuckin’ and jivin’,” “cooning it up”) allows them to critique Black representation together. Yet their private pleasure in Hell Date—a show that manufactures real trauma for laughs—suggests a tension between their intellectual posturing and their actual consumption.
The desire for domestic normalcy
Jane’s longing for the catalog family—matching pajamas, swimming pools, laughter—conflicts with her earlier ambition to be a free artist. Her mother dismisses this as bourgeois fantasy; Jane nonetheless pursues it.
Why This Chapter Matters
Chapter 2 establishes the origin story Jane tells herself about her marriage. It introduces the psychic as a voice that channels desire, and it foreshadows the way Jane and Lenny use racial humor as a private language. The chapter also sets up the contrast between the idealized “Hanna Andersson” family and the messy reality of a mixed-race household—a tension that will likely deepen in later chapters. The obsession with television and racial performance that gives the book its title is first named here.
Study Questions and Answers
1. Why does Jane cling to Wesley’s prediction even when Lenny is clearly with Lilith?
Jane is at a low point—approaching thirty-three, single, and disillusioned after a string of failed relationships. Wesley’s prophecy gives her a sense of destiny and direction. It offers a narrative that her life is not random but guided, and she desperately wants that certainty.
2. How does the Hanna Andersson catalog function symbolically in the chapter?
The catalog represents Jane’s longing for a stable, joyful, multiracial family. The images of a laughing Black family in matching clothes become a fetish object she keeps by her bed. The catalog symbolizes the domestic ideal she eventually achieves—though the real experience differs from the glossy photos.
3. What is Jane’s attitude toward interracial relationships, specifically Black men with white women?
Jane admits she “cannot bear the sight” of a Black man with a white woman, though she knows this puts her in “problematic territory” alongside racists like Strom Thurmond. She rationalizes it as wanting to protect Black manhood rather than reject white womanhood. This internal conflict reveals her complicated feelings about her own biracial identity.