Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of audiobooks, ebooks, and so much more with a free trial

    From $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Deception
    Deception
    Deception
    Audiobook4 hours

    Deception

    Written by Philip Roth

    Narrated by Susan Ericksen and David Colacci

    3.5/5

    ()

    Switch to ebook

    About this audiobook

    A dazzling novel about a man and woman married to other people—and the riveting conversations that take place before and after they make love—from the acclaimed Pulitzer Prize–winning author of American Pastoral.

    “With the lover everyday life recedes,” Roth writes—and exhibiting all his skill as a brilliant observer of human passion, he presents in Deception the tightly enclosed world of adulterous intimacy with a directness that has no equal in American fiction. At the center of Deception are two adulterers in their hiding place. He is a middle-aged American writer named Philip, living in London, and she is an articulate, intelligent, well-educated Englishwoman compromised by a humiliating marriage to which, in her thirties, she is already nervously half-resigned. The book’s action consists of conversation—mainly the lovers talking to each other before and after making love. That dialogue—sharp, rich, playful, inquiring, “moving,” as Hermione Lee writes, “on a scale of pain from furious bafflement to stoic gaiety”—is nearly all there is to this book, and all there needs to be.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBlackstone Publishing
    Release dateNov 5, 2024
    ISBN9798212384001
    Author

    Philip Roth

    PHILIP ROTH (1933–2018) won the Pulitzer Prize for American Pastoral in 1997. In 1998 he received the National Medal of Arts at the White House and in 2002 the highest award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Gold Medal in Fiction, previously awarded to John Dos Passos, William Faulkner and Saul Bellow, among others. He twice won the National Book Award, the PEN/Faulkner Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award. In 2005 The Plot Against America received the Society of American Historians’ prize for “the outstanding historical novel on an American theme for 2003–2004” and the W.H. Smith Award for the Best Book of the Year, making Roth the first writer in the forty-six-year history of the prize to win it twice. In 2005 Roth became the third living American writer to have his works published in a comprehensive, definitive edition by the Library of America. In 2011 he received the National Humanities Medal at the White House, and was later named the fourth recipient of the Man Booker International Prize. In 2012 he won Spain’s highest honor, the Prince of Asturias Award, and in 2013 he received France’s highest honor, Commander of the Legion of Honor.

    More audiobooks from Philip Roth

    Related to Deception

    Related audiobooks

    Literary Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related categories

    Reviews for Deception

    3.5/5

    109 ratings4 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 2/5

      Dec 10, 2022

      Philip Roth wrote lots of books, and he can be really uneven. He's trying out different forms, and this one frankly doesn't work for me. The whole thing is presented as direct dialogue by a writer and his lover. I thought I could work through the confusion of dialogue without context, when you can't even tell who's talking and what about at times, but frankly I didn't think the payoff was going to be worth the effort. So I gave up.This is one of my favorite writers- I totally love the Zuckerman books- but this one is no good.
    • 2/5

      Jan 7, 2018

      Poor sample to begin a new obsession. Will pass on Roth from here on out due to this pretty pathetic example of quality writing. No longer interested in reading anything he might add to my life if given a further chance.
    • 2/5

      Feb 8, 2014

      The trend of my reviews on Goodreads thus far makes me think I am becoming less tolerant of literary experimentation and excess. I am aware of the fact that I have limited time to read, and consequently I want the books I spend time with to reward me in some way, either through entertainment or insight. In Deception, the only thing I found praiseworthy was the dialogue, but since there is little more to it than that, I found it easy to put down without finishing it. I enjoy good dialogue, but it matters to me not only how something is said, but what is being said, and the "what" in this instance was less than compelling.

      Another barrier to entry into the world Roth creates in this novel is the distance I felt from his characters' concerns. Their unhappiness and issues seem like aspects of their lives over which they could exert control, but they choose not to. The frustration the female character expresses about her marriage and her inability to take joy in things sounded too much like the outtakes of a dull therapy session. And while I don't have the same aversion that some folks do to Roth's seeming obsession with the Jewish experience, it nevertheless becomes tiring to hear someone simply talk about it at length without gaining the additional perspective a more traditionally structured novel might offer.
    • 3/5

      Jun 25, 2010

      I have read a lot of Philip Roth and this was not one of my favorites. A unique style of writing where by the entire book is basically conversation between the writer and his lovers. At times it's rather difficult to follow who is speaking. However, it's a quick read and of course Roth being the great writer does draw the reader in with his story and structure. I am getting a little tired of his rants on the Jewish people. He seems to bring it into every book and it's getting tiresome.