An interesting look at a Hollywood and relationships, told with an unusual premise
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. Other people, what you imagine isn’t a movie, because it keeps going. It’s television… If you can’t see how romantic television is, you’re blind.
An aging, A-list movie star lotteries off the entirety of his mega-million blockbuster salary to a member of the general viewing public before taking up with a much younger model. His non-famous best friend (and often lover) looks on impassively, while recollecting their twenty-odd years of unlikely connection. And an aspiring filmmaker, unknown to them both, labors over a script about best friends and lovers while longing for the financial freedom to make great art.
Told in their alternating, intricately linked perspectives, Television is a funny, philosophically astute novel about phenomenal luck, whether windfall or chance encounter. Like Joan Didion’s classic Play It as It Lays, but speaking to a since irrevocably changed Hollywood, it portrays a culture in crisis and the disparities in wealth, beauty, talent, gender, and youth at the heart of contemporary American life. In this glittering but strange new world, lit up by social media and streaming services — what, if not love, can be counted in your favor?
Lauren Rothery’s Television was one of my most-anticipated novels of 2025, so I was very pleased when I received a DRC — it promised (and mostly delivered) an interesting look at a long-time friendship in Hollywood, altered but not damaged by diverging paths and differing levels of success. While I enjoyed the novel, there were some strange choices made.
The novel is strongest when it’s focused on the friendship and semi-complicated relationship between Verity (A-list leading man) and Helen (writer and best friend). We see the various twists and turns of their relationship — always emotional, sometimes physical, often co-dependent — and Rothery paints an engaging portrait of two people trying to make sense of life, love, and their careers. What is it they want in life? Is it fame? Money? Or is it connection. The novel covers years of their relationship, and the author does a great job of showing readers how people change over time, how they can and cannot connect with certain changes they encounter.
The first half of the novel was particularly well-written and structured, but things started to break down a bit in the second half/final third. The premise — Verity creating a lottery for his salary, which he ends up doing twice — fades into the background, for the most part. There were many opportunities to explore it that were left or skipped. Not infrequently, it felt like the author wasn’t really sure what to do with the great premise she’d come up with. A number of chapters from Phoebe’s perspective felt like distractions (especially the later, longer chapters); and every time the POV switched, I found myself irked and wanting to return to Verity and/or Helen.
Ultimately, this is an engaging and interesting book, with some interesting things to say about Hollywood as well as relationships. The author takes some different approaches to story-telling, which I have to believe were made intentionally. The novel seemed to become more and more vague in the final act, which gave it the feel of being unfinished. Television had a lot of promise, but, in my opinion, didn’t quite stick the landing. It was, however, well-written with some great lines and turns of phrase, and also some excellent characterization (Verity and Helen). I will definitely be keeping my eyes open for Rothery’s next book, whatever it might happen to be.
*
Lauren Rothery’s Television is out now, published by Ecco in North America and in the UK.
Civilian Reader 