“I’m an écouteur – an audiophiliac. I’m a talk fetishist.”

Deception opens with an American writer and an Englishwoman having an affair outside of their respective marriages. They meet in a secret hiding place in the busy Notting Hill district of London, in a room without a bed, and reveal themselves gradually as they talk before and after sex. The novel is solely crafted out of their conversations and this is all there is to this book, and all there needs to be.

But what’s more interesting is that the American writer in the novel is named “Philip”, and is writing about a character named “Zuckerman”, who is considered by critics to be Roth’s alter ego (Roth is an American writer too). It may leave one with a question about the title itself. Deception. Does it refer to the adultery committed in the novel or the clever game Roth plays on his readers?

Published in 1990.