The art of pillow talk
A Perfect Woman is sexy, sophisticated, with a balance of popular and high culture, romantic (both of them), scientific (mostly him), literary (mostly her), ideas abound (books are touchstones throughout). The real world is the setting—notwithstanding his claim that their day was spent in the paradise of his new
apartment—and her business life and his are strongly present and interwoven with the fabric of the story.
Art is a major theme and a key to understanding his communication and seduction style and her awakening to forms of art other than literature (“she’s a book girl, top to bottom”). The flow of dialog that makes up the story captures the way these two people talk when they’re alone together and striving to work through appearances to reality.
About style: A Perfect Woman will hold reader interest through the characters’ expressed wants and needs, their thrust and parry, advances and retreats, wit, stumbles, sexual behavior and attitudes. Evolving dialog and actions reveal two never-marrieds engaged in the most fundamental of all human activities.
A Perfect Woman may be unique in form. The story is driven by she-said/he-said dialog and each of the eighteen chapters is punctuated by alternating interior monologues: she thought/he thought. The narrative draws heavily on literature and is packed with what each character finds useful in the culture. The story takes place on a Saturday in December between noon and midnight.
Lastly, there’s a fair amount of humor (and attempts at it that sometimes miss the mark).
P.S. Please accept that the book lifts off with a hero sunk in a postcoital stupor.
The imperatives of realism dictate that it will take him a bit of time to return to earth.