The book is written almost entirety in dialogue and is presented as the research notes for Roth’s earlier novel The Counterlife.

The book revolves around a series of intimate conversations recorded by a married Jewish-American writer named Philip, living in London, and an upper-middle-class Englishwoman trapped in a loveless marriage.

Writing in the New York Times Book Review, the writer and critic Fay Weldon called the novel, "extraordinary, elegant, disturbing," adding that she had found it, "exhilarating.

Deception is included in the fifth volume of Philip Roth's collected works Novels and Other Narratives 1986–1991, published by the Library of America.

The novel was adapted in the 2021 film of the same name, starring Denis Podalydès, Léa Seydoux and Anouk Grinberg.