Meet the Newmans

Set in Hollywood in March 1964, the novel follows the Newmans, a real-life family who play fictionalized versions of themselves on a long-running CBS sitcom called Meet the Newmans. For 12 years, patriarch Del Newman has served as the show's writer, director, producer, and star, while his wife, Dinah, plays the cheerful homemaker, and their two sons, Guy and Shep, play wholesome versions of themselves. Behind the scenes, the family is fraying. The show's ratings have plummeted, their contract is expiring, and CBS president James T. Aubrey has threatened cancellation. Del has secretly depleted the family's finances through lavish spending on cars, art, and generosity to employees. He and Dinah, 43, have been sleeping in separate rooms for months without acknowledging it.

The story opens on the night of March 20, 1964, with Dinah burning dinner in their Toluca Lake kitchen, a failed gesture to repair her marriage. She fantasizes idly about an affair with the neighbor, a reflection of her restlessness. Earlier that day, she secretly visited the family doctor about a spreading numbness in her hands and limbs, insisting her life is "perfect" (21) even as she describes a hollow feeling inside her. The doctor draws blood and suggests the symptoms may stem from menopause or stress, but Dinah privately fears something worse.

That same morning, a New York Times critic published a column urging CBS to cancel the show, calling it "square and outdated" (11). In Aubrey's office, the Newmans learn that their sponsor, Kodak, has pulled out and that Aubrey wants to sideline Del and Dinah entirely, focusing the show on the sons. He demands that Guy, 22, marry his on-screen love interest, Eileen Weld, both on the show and in real life, to quash tabloid rumors about Guy's close relationship with his roommate, Kelly Faber. The finale must air live on April 24. Meanwhile, Shep, nearly 18, is a teen idol whose records rival the Beatles but whose income is locked in a trust he cannot access until he is 21. The night before, his girlfriend Lorrie told him she is eight weeks pregnant.

Juliet Dunne, one of only two female reporters at the Los Angeles Times, is assigned to interview Dinah for the Lifestyle section. Juliet came to LA from Indiana, changed her surname to shed her father, and dreams of becoming a hard news reporter. She carries the stigma of a past tabloid scandal involving an on-again, off-again relationship with a famous rock musician, a scandal that reduced her to a punchline known as "The Girl in the Fur Skin Rug." At Dinah's house, Juliet attacks her for perpetuating regressive gender roles, citing Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique and women's legal inequality. Dinah pushes back, noting the generational divide, and turns the tables by asking how Juliet felt being reduced to a tabloid joke. Both women are shaken.

That evening, Del, demoralized after a failed meeting with Kodak, drives west toward the ocean instead of home. Disoriented and exhausted, possibly concussed from being tackled by his sons during filming earlier that day, he crashes into a palm tree. Sydney Weiss, the family's executive producer and longtime friend, calls Dinah from the hospital. Del is placed in a medically induced coma to reduce brain swelling.

With Del unconscious, Dinah takes charge. She instructs Guy to direct the show, tells the crew Del is visiting his sick mother back east, and volunteers to find a new sponsor. Her meetings with advertisers are humiliating: she is kept waiting while men are seen first, ogled, and dismissed. At Sunbeam, she delivers a passionate pitch that fails, but the company president's wife, Mrs. Sunbeam, intercepts her afterward to express admiration for the show. This connection will prove crucial.

Unable to sleep, Dinah reads The Feminine Mystique cover to cover and recognizes her own emptiness in Friedan's descriptions. Days later, she strides into the LA Times newsroom and offers Juliet a job as her writing partner for the season finale. "I plan to change history," she tells Juliet (147). Juliet agrees.

Their collaboration is contentious. Juliet pushes for bold feminist content; Dinah insists on respecting the show's identity. A turning point comes when they smoke a joint from Shep's room on the office windowsill and begin trading confessions. Dinah declares, "I think it's time Dinah Newman had an orgasm" (158), and their real work begins.

Meanwhile, Guy finds his footing as director, though he struggles with anxiety and his father's long shadow. His relationship with Kelly deepens even as the pressure to marry Eileen mounts. The engagement is eventually called off when Eileen tells Guy she cannot go through with the sham marriage. Shep, torn between Lorrie's pregnancy and his growing feelings for Eileen, gives a raw interview to Life magazine that infuriates Aubrey and costs the show its remaining sponsors.

In Del's office, Dinah discovers shoeboxes of financial records revealing the family is nearly broke. She also finds a house deed in Del's name and years of monthly checks to someone called "M. Leslie," whom she assumes is a mistress. One night, she drives to the house in Santa Monica and peers through the window, only to be spotted by a neighbor and arrested as a "Peeping Tom." In a chaotic scene at the West Hollywood Sheriff's Station, the entire family converges: Shep is there after a brawl on the Sunset Strip, Guy and Kelly after being caught in a raid on a gay bar, and Dinah in custody.

Dinah and Juliet organize a consciousness-raising session, a feminist group discussion, at the Newman home with eight women, including cast members, Nurse Benny (who cared for Del at the hospital), Juliet's friend Renee Otero (a gifted clothing designer stuck in the LA Times typing pool), and Flora Klausen, the family's longtime housekeeper. They discuss feminism, race, the Pill, and Friedan's blind spots regarding women of color. Afterward, all eight strip to their underwear and swim in Toluca Lake, a moment of collective liberation.

Three weeks after the accident, Del's heart stops. Doctors resuscitate him, and when the family rushes to the hospital, they learn he is awake. His return upends everything. He discovers the script Dinah and Juliet have written, finds his cars sold, and confronts the new order. Kelly delivers a passionate defense of Guy's directing ability, quoting Del's own advice back at him. Dinah throws the financial records onto the bed and demands the truth about M. Leslie. Del confesses: Matthew Leslie is his father. Del fabricated his entire past to escape a cold, emotionally unavailable man. The monthly checks and the house were guilt payments. His father has cancer; the telegram that arrived the day before the accident was from him.

With the finale days away, Aubrey and CBS censors object to the feminist script, but Mrs. Sunbeam assembles the wives of Sunbeam's top executives to watch a run-through. Their standing ovation secures the show's approval. Del and Guy reconcile when Guy compares his growth to learning to ride without training wheels and asks Del to let him ride on his own. Del accepts Guy's leadership and, when Guy tells him he loves Kelly, says it is about time he admitted it.

On April 24, before 40 million viewers expecting a wedding, the Newmans broadcast their finale live and in color for the first time. The script follows Dinah's real journey in fictionalized form: Del's coma, Dinah's feminist awakening, her sons learning to cook, and a brief moment where Guy and a new character named Kelly lock eyes. Dinah hands Del her signature pearls and delivers the closing line, a veiled reference to Friedan: "You don't get one from shining the kitchen floor. But my god, I feel like I'm having one now" (377). Shep debuts a new song in a raw, genre-blending style that brings down the house.

Two weeks later, the show is quietly canceled. In an epilogue set in 1969, the extended family gathers at the Toluca Lake house one last time before it is sold. Guy has become one of television's most sought-after directors; Kelly produces behind the scenes, hiring talent blacklisted during the Lavender Scare, a mid-century purge of LGBTQ+ individuals from government and creative industries. They are each raising an adopted daughter through single-father adoptions, the only legal option, since public acknowledgment of their relationship would risk career destruction and legal consequences. Shep makes music on his own terms; he and Eileen have married and are raising two children. Juliet and Nick Mitchell, a Black colleague from the Times, have eloped and work as investigative journalists at The New York Times. The narrator reveals that Del will die the following year at 50, never fully recovered from the accident. Dinah will never remarry. She will write, produce, march with NOW (the National Organization for Women), a major feminist advocacy group, and fight for the ERA (Equal Rights Amendment), a proposed constitutional amendment guaranteeing gender equality. On their last evening together, she traces Del's profile, kisses him, and switches off the light.