Review: 'The Deceptions'

 ©2022 All Rights Reserved Lynne Perednia

The Deceptions
By Jill Bialosky
Literary Fiction
Counterpoint

Some novels call out to certain readers to find them, so that those readers can be immersed in the feelings and ideas that make up the reason for the story. Such a novel for me is The Deceptions by Jill Bialosky.

The novel begins with notice of an upcoming book that promises to shed light on the relationship between two contemporary poets. The book, by a young woman academic, is entitled Vindication. Echoes of Mary Wollstonecraft are perfecty appropriate. For this is a story about a woman, about creativity, about communing with words and the poet's challenge to use words to make sense of ideas, emotions and events.

The novel then switches to the narration of a nameless woman, a middle-aged teacher whose latest book of poetry will soon be published. She isn't sure whether to look forward to or dread a promised review in The New York Times, especially if a certain misogynist writes the review. She is a person who is wrapped up in words, and has been for most of her life. She teaches classics to boys on the verge of manhood in a private Manhattan academy. Her husband is a research doctor. Their only surviving child, a son, is a college freshman in a small town.

As the story opens, she is anxious and her husband is angry. He focuses on television sports and they do next to nothing together. Of course it's been ages since they were intimate. How much of this is due to her anxiety about her book? About both of their concerns for their son? What about his work, which he doesn't like to talk about? And what about the Visiting Poet who was in residence at her school last year? What role does he play in her regrets?

To help steady herself, our poet spends as much time as possible in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It is a place she has frequented for much of her life, and she finds both peace and quests there. During her visits, the reader gets to see the works of art that are her focal points of concentration, and to ruminate on how the attributes of both the artwork and the diety portrayed propel her search for answers to what is causing her internal crises. These interior monologues, and a few conversations with museum personnel and visitors, are outstanding ways to work through the ideas that anchor Greek, Roman and Egyptian classical literature and dieties, and the way these ideas structure our culture today.

The classical references are especially apt because her upcoming book is a series of poems inspired by the myth of Leda and the Swan. That there is more than one way to view the story and Leda is woven into the monologues at the museum and the very fabric of the narrative. It's not an easy subject, but it is one that is tackled with heart and mind.

To compare and contrast our poet's family life, she has a longtime neighbor whose situation at times mirrors her own. Both couples had twins, a boy and a girl. Our poet's daughter died after one day. The other couple's daughter is like a foster daughter to her in their shared love of literature and the written word. Whereas it's not clear what happened between her and the Visiting Poet, her neighbor has fallen for her yoga instructor and knows she is now living her best life.

Before the novel ends, the reader finds out the mystery of the Visiting Poet, what kind of a book review is published in the Times and what our poet plans next. Because of the journeys she has undertaken at the Met, there is a solid foundation to her determination to be her own true self and to not be confined by the way a male-dominated society views the world.

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. The reader does not have to be able to relate to every aspect of our poet's situation to connect with her thoughts and feelings. It is a novel that can stay with the reader for a very long time.