Deception

By Philip Roth

Categories: Literature & Fiction

Philip Roth's 1990 novel is told almost entirely in dialogue between a married American writer named Philip, living in London, and his English lover, who meet in his study. They talk about her unhappy marriage, his work, England's quiet antisemitism, and other women in his life, until his wife finds his notebook and asks whether the conversations are real or invented.

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• Barack Obama: “Some of the great books by Jewish authors like Philip Roth or Saul Bellow, they are steeped with this sense of being an outsider, longing to get in, not sure what you're giving up — what you're willing to give up and what you're not willing to give up.”