Dramas & Plays
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The Deceptions: A Novel
An explosive tale of art and myth, desire and betrayal, from New York Times best-selling author Jill Bialosky
Something terrible has happened and I don't know what to do. An unnamed narrator's life is unraveling. Her only child has left home, and her twenty-year marriage is strained. Anticipation about her soon-to-be-released book of poetry looms. She seeks answers to the paradoxes of love, desire, and parenthood among the Greek and Roman gods at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. As she passes her days teaching at a boys' prep school, spending her off-hours sequestered in the museum's austere galleries, she is haunted by memories of a yearlong friendship with a colleague, a fellow poet struggling with his craft. As secret betrayals and deceptions come to light and rage threatens to overwhelm her, the pantheon of gods assume remarkably vivid lives of their own, forcing her to choose between reality and myth in an effort to free herself from the patriarchal constraints of the past and embrace a new vision for her future.
The Deceptions is a page-turning and seductively told exploration of female sexuality and ambition as well as a human drama that dares to test the stories we tell ourselves. It is also a brilliant investigation of a life caught between the dueling magnetic poles of privacy and its appropriation in art and literature. Celebrated poet, memoirist, and novelist Jill Bialosky has reached new and daring heights in her boldest work yet.
Something terrible has happened and I don't know what to do. An unnamed narrator's life is unraveling. Her only child has left home, and her twenty-year marriage is strained. Anticipation about her soon-to-be-released book of poetry looms. She seeks answers to the paradoxes of love, desire, and parenthood among the Greek and Roman gods at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. As she passes her days teaching at a boys' prep school, spending her off-hours sequestered in the museum's austere galleries, she is haunted by memories of a yearlong friendship with a colleague, a fellow poet struggling with his craft. As secret betrayals and deceptions come to light and rage threatens to overwhelm her, the pantheon of gods assume remarkably vivid lives of their own, forcing her to choose between reality and myth in an effort to free herself from the patriarchal constraints of the past and embrace a new vision for her future.
The Deceptions is a page-turning and seductively told exploration of female sexuality and ambition as well as a human drama that dares to test the stories we tell ourselves. It is also a brilliant investigation of a life caught between the dueling magnetic poles of privacy and its appropriation in art and literature. Celebrated poet, memoirist, and novelist Jill Bialosky has reached new and daring heights in her boldest work yet.
Editorial Reviews
PureWow, A Must Read Book for September
A Literary Hub Most Anticipated Book of the Year
"Throughout The Deceptions, the author is willing to confront nuance, more than one way of looking at something and the lies people tell themselves, as well as others. As is noted while contemplating one statue of Heracles, pathos is an important aspect of this novel. Emotions are both acknowledged and projected. The Deceptions is an engrossing, engaging novel . . . It is a novel that can stay with the reader for a very long time." -Daily Kos
"Poetry and inspiration, obsession and divinity, all come under Bialosky's purview in her elegantly constructed fable of trying to create while everything else falls apart." -Ed Simon, The Millions, A Most Anticipated Book of the Year
"A stunning tale of entitlement, betrayal, creativity, and true power." -Booklist
"The great Greeks-Odysseus, Herakles, Aphrodite, and, centrally, Leda and the Swan-circle around this powerfully written account of a woman in a kind of slow crisis and help her interrogate her marriage and desires. Then, in an extraordinary, explosive final act, a profound act of betrayal lifts the novel towards genuine tragedy. The Deceptions is a deeply felt and formally original tour-de-force." -Salman Rushdie
"In The Deceptions Jill Bialosky captures the gutted hollow of the empty nest, the weight of marriage, and the ember of desire that is desperate for air. Bialosky explores the female artist's need to take risks, to be seen and known, against her need for comfort, safety, and home. In stunning, finely tuned prose, Bialosky captures the music of marriage, the complexity of female ambition, sexual hunger, and rage. This story unfurls in a beautiful weave among objects from The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Myth, archetype, and history come to life and in the end we are returned to the present-this moment-and the question of what it is to be human, to risk, to fail, to suffer the pain of love." -A.M. Homes
"At once classical and contemporary, Jill Bialosky's powerful new novel weaves together themes of art and life, sexuality and family, gender dynamics and selfhood. The Deceptions is urgent, unsettling, and utterly consumin...
A Literary Hub Most Anticipated Book of the Year
"Throughout The Deceptions, the author is willing to confront nuance, more than one way of looking at something and the lies people tell themselves, as well as others. As is noted while contemplating one statue of Heracles, pathos is an important aspect of this novel. Emotions are both acknowledged and projected. The Deceptions is an engrossing, engaging novel . . . It is a novel that can stay with the reader for a very long time." -Daily Kos
"Poetry and inspiration, obsession and divinity, all come under Bialosky's purview in her elegantly constructed fable of trying to create while everything else falls apart." -Ed Simon, The Millions, A Most Anticipated Book of the Year
"A stunning tale of entitlement, betrayal, creativity, and true power." -Booklist
"The great Greeks-Odysseus, Herakles, Aphrodite, and, centrally, Leda and the Swan-circle around this powerfully written account of a woman in a kind of slow crisis and help her interrogate her marriage and desires. Then, in an extraordinary, explosive final act, a profound act of betrayal lifts the novel towards genuine tragedy. The Deceptions is a deeply felt and formally original tour-de-force." -Salman Rushdie
"In The Deceptions Jill Bialosky captures the gutted hollow of the empty nest, the weight of marriage, and the ember of desire that is desperate for air. Bialosky explores the female artist's need to take risks, to be seen and known, against her need for comfort, safety, and home. In stunning, finely tuned prose, Bialosky captures the music of marriage, the complexity of female ambition, sexual hunger, and rage. This story unfurls in a beautiful weave among objects from The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Myth, archetype, and history come to life and in the end we are returned to the present-this moment-and the question of what it is to be human, to risk, to fail, to suffer the pain of love." -A.M. Homes
"At once classical and contemporary, Jill Bialosky's powerful new novel weaves together themes of art and life, sexuality and family, gender dynamics and selfhood. The Deceptions is urgent, unsettling, and utterly consumin...
