DECEPTION [Paperback]

Philip Roth (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 15, 1991

A famous writer, named Philip, and his mistress meet in a room without a bed. They talk, they play games with each other, they have sex, they tell lies. "Deception", Philip Roth's most poignant and provocative work since Portnoy's "Complaint", explores adultery and the unmasking of illicit lovers in a novel that exposes the tenderness and uncertainty underlying all affairs of the heart.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Conversations, most of them between an American writer living in London and his English mistress, make up what PW called "a clever comedy of manners that segues--as is the author's wont--into a disquisition on the distinction between literature and life."
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Philip, a successful, middle-aged, and highly opinionated Jewish-American novelist, moves to a small flat in London to work on his new book. He begins seeing a married Englishwoman in his spare time, and soon he has filled a notebook with their pre- and post-coital conversations. When he publishes this document as a novel, his indignant mistress accuses him of deceiving both her and his public. The book ends with Philip's impassioned defense of self-referential fiction. The issue, however, is not self-referential fiction in general but simply Roth's own peculiar version of it, which consists mostly of unabashed editorializing through the mouthpiece of Philip. A textbook example of the novel as soapbox, Deception will appeal only to Roth's most steadfast supporters. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 1/90. --Edward B. St. John, Loyola Law Sch. Lib., Los Angeles
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Touchstone; First Edition edition (February 15, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 067173296X
• ISBN-13: 978-0671732967
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,878,405 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

In the 1990s Philip Roth won America's four major literary awards in succession: the National Book Critics Circle Award for Patrimony (1991), the PEN/Faulkner Award for Operation Shylock (1993), the National Book Award for Sabbath's Theater (1995), and the Pulitzer Prize in fiction for American Pastoral (1997). He won the Ambassador Book Award of the English-Speaking Union for I Married a Communist (1998); in the same year he received the National Medal of Arts at the White House. Previously he won the National Book Critics Circle Award for The Counterlife (1986) and the National Book Award for his first book, Goodbye, Columbus (1959). In 2000 he published The Human Stain, concluding a trilogy that depicts the ideological ethos of postwar America. For The Human Stain Roth received his second PEN/Faulkner Award as well as Britain's W. H. Smith Award for the Best Book of the Year. In 2001 he received the highest award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Gold Medal in Fiction, given every six years "for the entire work of the recipient." In 2005 The Plot Against America received the Society of American Historians Award for "the outstanding historical novel on an American theme for 2003--2004." In 2007 Roth received the PEN/Faulkner Award for Everyman.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Distilled Roth - a fine vintage, May 30, 2000

By 

"scottish_lawyer" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Deception (Paperback)

"Happy Birthday" "Thanks." "It's Deception by Philip Roth. You'll love it" "Sure?" "Yes" "Why?" "Because it's Philip Roth, and it's clever, and it's humane, and it's about love and about trust and about sex." "Like Portnoy's Complaint and Sabbath's Theater?" "Well, no. You see it's written completely in dialogue" "Completely?" "With one or two stage directions, but otherwise completely in dialogue" "and what's it about?" "A writer called Philip" "Philip?" "Yes, Philip. Roth doesn't bother with Zuckerman here" "So, what does Philip do?" "He talks. Just talks. To his wife. To his mistress or mistresses." "Plural?" "Yes, plural." "So he talks." ... "Just talks?" "Yes. Although it's cleverly done. In some sections you don't know if it's Philip, or a woman talking at first. Your whole perception can be changed depending on how you read these scenes." "And you liked it?" "Of course. I loved it. It's up there with American Pastoral and Sabbath's Theater. But it's distilled Roth. There's nothing unnecessary."

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Far from vintage Roth, December 17, 2008

By 

J. Marren "jtm497" (Glen Ridge, NJ USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Deception (Paperback)

I'm a big Philip Roth fan. I love his lush prose, the endless sentences that wind their way around an idea and bring the reader effortlessly along. I love how he can recreate a time and place in meticulous detail. I love the sense of history he weaves into his work.

Having said all that, you'll find none of it in "Deception." I haven't read all Roth's work--was this a literary experiment? This book is far form lush, far too much effort to read. I quickly became tired of going back and rereading, trying to figure out who was speaking, who the characters were, even where events were taking place. It did get better after awhile, and the layers of deception revealed at the end were clever indeed. But ultimately I was disappointed. My next step is to get another of Roth's novels that I can really sink my teeth into.

9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A stylish feat of literary legerdemain, June 3, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Deception (Paperback)

Philip Roth's Deception is a whirlwind of voyeuristic visits with two witty, articulate adults engaged in an adulterous affair. In this swift novel, Roth has performed a stylish piece of literary legerdemain: no word is written outside of quotation marks. The flowing rivulets of conversation between the couple give the reader such a strong sense of proximity one almost feels he or she is eavesdropping. It speaks to Roth's authorial prowess that, despite this lack of background and description outside the characters' conversations, the reader is seldom left uninformed (and, if the reader can't always keep up, Roth sweeps them along anyway!). This cinematic technique lends a strong sense of immediacy and vitality to the characters. Roth's ear for spoken language is keen: nothing sounds contrived. The lovers' bantering undulates around the theme of deception -- deceiving one's spouse, deceiving one's self. Ultimately, we wonder if Roth himself is deceiving us. Roth also gives us glimpses, through the couple's banterings, of his important themes, such as nationality, Anti-Semitism, and love. After this compelling novel, the first-time Roth reader is inspired to tackle his longer, more epic works, such as Portnoy's Complaint and Sabbath's Theater. Our brief visit with Roth's world entices us to come again