Ayelet Waldman’s latest novel is unlike anything else out there right now. A Perfect Hand is set in Victorian England and it’s a marriage plot with a twist. Alice Lockey, a lady’s maid, has fallen for Charlie Wells, a lord’s valet. The only way these two servants can be together is if Alice’s Lady Jemima falls for Charlie’s Lord Wynstowe. Which would be straightforward enough, except the lord and the lady despise each other.
The novel has been described as Jane Austen meets Nora Ephron, and that feels exactly right. It’s funny, original, and the voice is captivating from the very first page. Amidst the crinolines, fancy French hairstyles, chamber pots, and stolen kisses, Waldman weaves in some modern-day thinking and feminist ideology that gives the whole thing a sharp, contemporary edge.
In this episode of Elena Meets the Author, Ayelet and I get into how the idea came from her daughter’s advice after years of abandoned drafts, the captivating direct-to-reader Victorian lady-novelist narrator voice she developed, and the obsessive research that went into getting the period right, from the reality of servant life to toxic Victorian cosmetics to hiring a Victorian scholar and British graduate students to catch every anachronism. We also talk about the title’s three meanings, the suffrage era threads woven through the story, and what drew her to escapism with a feminist conscience.
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00:00 Elena meets Ayelet
00:02 Welcome to the Podcast
00:17 Meet Ayelet and the Novel
01:21 Reading a Funny Excerpt
03:39 Finding the Narrator Voice
04:55 Daughter Inspired the Premise
06:19 Twists and Writing Timeline
08:24 Microdosing and Genre Swerves
10:42 Chasing Victorian Language
11:36 Why Shift to Suffrage Era
15:08 Servant Life Research Details
17:57 Bustles and Modern Beauty
19:37 Plastic Surgery and Hollywood
23:13 Meet the Main Characters
28:59 Meet Nigel Winstow
29:28 Calipers and Vanity Science
35:09 Experts Catch Anachronisms
37:14 Audiobook Accent Choices
38:01 Meaning of Perfect Hand
40:03 Stealing Victorian Voices
43:15 Escapism and Suffrage Echoes
47:13 Swiss Army Knife Career
49:08 Next Projects and WWI
51:25 Farewell and Wrap Up
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