Deception
-
-
5.0 • 1 Rating
-
-
- £3.99
-
- £3.99
Publisher Description
'This swift, elegant, disturbing novel...stands at the extreme of contemporary fiction' New York Times Book Review
He is a middle-aged American writer called Philip; she is an articulate, well-educated Englishwoman trapped in a loveless and humiliating marriage. In Philip's London studio, this play of voices - sharp, tender and inquiring - reveals both their past lives with startling clarity. Deception is fiendishly clever, as it dances with the conventions of the novel, and redefines the boundaries between fiction and reality.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Written entirely in unascribed dialogue (which provides the challenge of identifying the speakers), this newest novel by the NBCC Award-winning author is a clever comedy of manners that segues--as is the author's wont--into a disquisition on the distinction between literature and life. Most of the conversations are articulate, erotic pillow talk between adulterous lovers: an American writer living in London and his English mistress. She complains about the complications of her domestic life. He mainly listens: ``I'm an ecouteur--an audiophiliac. I'm a talk fetishist.'' The identification with Roth himself is clear; the male speaker refers to ``Zuckerman, my character.'' He also records conversations with other women, his former lovers. Two of them are emigrees from Eastern Europe; like the male speaker/Roth, they are outsiders in English society, where he is very conscious of British anti-Semitism. But the book is more complex than the conversational format suggests. Roth is up to his old tricks; the title has a dual meaning. In a conversation between the male character/Roth and his ``wife,'' he insists that these dialogues are purely imaginary, notes for a novel in progress. Yes, but then another conversation suggests otherwise. Who is being deceived here? It's impossible to say. First serial to Esquire.
