TV in novels?

September 8, 2013 4:36 PM

What novels and short stories do a good job of depicting television? Mostly I'm interested in characters watching TV, but I'll also accept answers like 1984—where (a slightly different version of) TV plays a major role in the plot.
posted by Hoenikker to Writing & Language (22 answers total)

I don't know if this is too far from what you're looking for, but TV plays a big role in Carolyn Parkhurst's Lost and Found, in which contestants on an "Amazing Race" style reality TV show tell their stories in alternating chapters. There's a mother-daughter team with a secret, a pair of former child stars hoping for a comeback, born-again Christian newlyweds, recently divorced brothers...all in the fishbowl of this television production. It's an interesting and thoughtful novel.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 4:47 PM on September 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

Don DeLillo, White Noise
posted by Lorin at 4:58 PM on September 8, 2013 [2 favorites]

Another slightly different version of TV figures largely in Fahrenheit 451.
posted by bq at 5:01 PM on September 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

Requiem for a Dream, Hubert Selby, Jr.
posted by Rykey at 5:06 PM on September 8, 2013

Margaret Laurence's The Fire-Dwellers
posted by brujita at 5:07 PM on September 8, 2013

Wally Lamb's "She's Come Undone."
posted by justonegirl at 5:16 PM on September 8, 2013

Being There, Jerzy Kosinski.
posted by thinkpiece at 5:19 PM on September 8, 2013

Vineland, by Pynchon.
posted by grobstein at 5:39 PM on September 8, 2013

Ginger and Fred, a movie by Fellini.
posted by I'm Brian and so's my wife! at 5:40 PM on September 8, 2013

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K Dick.
posted by martinX's bellbottoms at 6:55 PM on September 8, 2013

Harrison Bergeron
posted by The Hyacinth Girl at 6:58 PM on September 8, 2013

Harrison Bergeron
Fahrenheit 451
posted by phunniemee at 6:58 PM on September 8, 2013

The Hunger Games
posted by telegraph at 7:18 PM on September 8, 2013

The Milhollands and their Damned Soul. One of the six stories in Edmund Wilson's Memoirs of Hecate County

Also, this far in and no mention of mefite favourite Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace? A future version of television that more resembles the intertubes but for all intents and purposes, television.
posted by Phlegmco(tm) at 7:43 PM on September 8, 2013

Mira Grant's Newsflesh trilogy. It's more video-blogging than conventional TV, but plays a signficant role. All the main characters are bloggers.
posted by zanni at 10:46 PM on September 8, 2013

The Running Man.
posted by MuffinMan at 12:43 AM on September 9, 2013

Curtis White, Memories of My Father Watching TV.
posted by Sonny Jim at 2:36 AM on September 9, 2013

Dan Jenkin's Limo, was freaking precient about reality programming. The book was written in 1976.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 5:34 AM on September 9, 2013

Carter Beats the Devil by Glen David Gold deals with the invention of TV in the 1920s.
posted by Chenko at 1:06 PM on September 9, 2013

The Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe.
posted by Chrysostom at 1:37 PM on September 9, 2013

In the comic book The Dark Knight Returns, tv talking heads and talk shows offer commentary on the plot as it progresses, and also push the story along.
posted by zoetrope at 2:06 PM on September 9, 2013

To Die For, by Joyce Maynard.
posted by still_wears_a_hat at 4:32 PM on September 9, 2013