“Television” by Lauren Rothery

Smart, sly, and irresistibly stylish, the LARB Book Club Winter 2026 pick is Lauren Rothery’s debut novel, Television.

October 27, 2025

LARB Book Club is thrilled to announce our Winter 2026 Book Club title: Television by Lauren Rothery! To join the LARB Book Club, where we put you in conversation with staff and members and send a copy of the selected title to your door, become a Friend member today. This discussion will take place on January 28, 2026, at 6 p.m. PT on Zoom. Register for the discussion here.

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BoJack Horseman meets Joan Didion in this smart, sly, and irresistibly stylish debut novel about a jaded movie star and the two differently conflicted women in his orbit.

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 unfamous best friend (and often lover) looks on impassively, while recollecting their 20-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?

With plays in chronology, bright, nimble dialogue, and a profoundly modern style, Lauren Rothery’s debut novel is an arresting feat of literary impressionism, and marks the arrival of a significant new talent to the landscape of American fiction.

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“Television sent me on paths I didn’t expect, turning timeless topics such as love, lust, and success into characters, at once elusive and incessant, as they are in life. With quick, surefooted language sometimes giving way to epiphanic fragments that nearly break the fourth wall, we're on high alert that nothing is so easily explained by some idea of reality, especially when actors are involved.” - Natasha Stagg, author of Grand Rapids

“Television is as stylish as it is substantial. A timely and timeless novel for readers of Joan Didion and Gary Indiana. An excellent first book.” - Stephanie Wambugu, author of Lonely Crowds

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Lauren Rothery was born in London and raised in San Diego. She spent her twenties writing and directing short films and music videos between New York and Los Angeles. In 2020, she moved to Europe and began writing fiction. Television is her first novel.

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Join our Book Club today to get Television plus our next three staff-curated selections, as well as access to our quarterly discussions hosted by LARB staff. Previous selections have included Mother Mary Comes to Me by Arundhati Roy, Fresh, Green Life by Sebastian Castillo, and Audition by Katie Kitamura.