Deceit

A Novel

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Pub Date 07 Feb 2023 | Archive Date 17 Jan 2023

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Description

“This is . . . real literature, pure and honest.”
—Vladimir Nabokov

"The scintillating English-language debut from Felsen . . . [is] a fittingly volatile record of ruinous desire. 
Publishers Weekly

Once considered the 'Russian Proust', Yuri Felsen tells the story of an obsessive love affair set in interwar Europe in Deceit, an experimental novel in the form of a diary that is an as-yet-undiscovered landmark of Russian émigré literature.


We meet our unnamed narrator in Paris in the 20s, where he finds himself an expat after the Russian Revolution. At a friend’s request he meets the beautiful, clever socialite Lyolya, also a recent exile from Russia. What begins as casual friendship quickly turns into fascination and obsession, as Lyolya gives mixed signals and pursues other men. Our narrator, emerging from a depression, is soon overwhelmed by the very idea of her, which begins to contour all of his observations, thoughts, and feelings. While Lyolya continues to live a life unencumbered by the forces of social convention, and history, our narrator’s revelations, written in diary form, grow increasingly painful, familiar, and rich with psychological introspection.

Quite unlike any other writer in the Russian canon, Felsen evokes in poetic and idiosyncratic prose not only the Zeitgeist of interwar Europe and his émigré milieu, but also the existential crisis of the age.
“This is . . . real literature, pure and honest.”
—Vladimir Nabokov

"The scintillating English-language debut from Felsen . . . [is] a fittingly volatile record of ruinous desire. 
Publishers Weekly

...

Advance Praise

"Timely, relatable, and thoroughly absorbing, if Deceit proves anything, it is how little both our interior and exterior lives have changed over the span of a tumultuous century."

—Sarah Gear, Los Angeles Review of Books


"We are trapped in the narrator’s head as we’re trapped in our own consciousness; this is Felsen’s power."

—The Irish Times


"So far, so very Proust, of whom Felsen was an acolyte. Witness his long, elastic sentences, and some of their favourite tricks, such as the centrifugal spin from a transient feeling to a pronouncement on humanity...Felsen's name deserves to be conjured with, just as it was before Paris fell."

—Telegraph


"This translation is a formidable achievement...reading these pages as the narrator minutely examines his own judgments has a hypnotic effect. Layer after layer is stripped from the narrator's mind until we are left with the core: amor vincit omnia."

—Literary Review


"For reasons that are evident from the first page, Felsen achieved with the publication of Deceit the reputation of a Russian Proust, an accolade reinforced by Karetnyk’s splendid, lucent translation."

—Hong Kong Review of Books

"Timely, relatable, and thoroughly absorbing, if Deceit proves anything, it is how little both our interior and exterior lives have changed over the span of a tumultuous century."

—Sarah Gear, Los...


Marketing Plan

  • National media campaign including print and online coverage
  • Pitch for feature stories on the rediscovery of this modernist classic and posthumous author profiles
  • ARC giveaways in trade media, including Goodreads and NetGalley
  • Target outreach to publications and reviewers focused on literature in translation, Russian dissident literature, modernist classics, Jewish literature, holocaust literature, postumous rediscoveries, Proust
  • National media campaign including print and online coverage
  • Pitch for feature stories on the rediscovery of this modernist classic and posthumous author profiles
  • ARC giveaways in trade media, including...

Available Editions

EDITION Other Format
ISBN 9781662601965
PRICE $23.00 (USD)
PAGES 256

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Average rating from 6 members


Featured Reviews

In 'Deceit' Yuri Felsen explores a torrid love-affair between an unnamed ex-pat living in Paris and a socialite named Lyolya. Written in a highly poetic style, told through the diary of our narrator, Felsen manages to tell a story both grounded in history but relevant to our present moment. "Deceit" is a must-read novel for fans of Russian literature.

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this was a interesting concept for a novel, I enjoyed the way Yuri Felsen wrote this. It was a well-written novel that had what I was hoping for when I requested it. The characters were what I was hoping for and I enjoyed reading this.

"As so often in such moments, I was able to reason freely, though confusedly, with myself, and a bright flash of bewilderment struck me as I wondered why I had never felt so impeccably assured with Lyolya"

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I really enjoyed the prose of Deceit, and the perspective of the unnamed narrator's love/obsession. I didn't completely connect with the storyteller, but I could appreciate the quality writing.

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Great if you like books with lots of thinking but not a lot of action (Which I do!) Wish there was more from this author to dive into.

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