“Clever, funny, and very entertaining.” — The New York Times Book Review (Editors’ Choice)

“Inventive, intelligent, and hilarious…A Working Theory of Love revels in these big questions: Are humans more like computers than we think? Is the experience of love all chemicals and projection? Is human connection an illusion — a kind of cosmic Turing test in which it’s only necessary to fool a few people some of the time?”
—San Francisco Chronicle

A Southern transplant to San Francisco, Neill Bassett Jr has achieved success in a minor key. He has an airy, well-lit apartment right on Dolores Park, he dates with no strings attached, and he has amenable work at a scrappy start-up, Amiante Systems, training an AI to seem more life-like. The only complication, as far as he can see, is that this AI is based on thousands of pages from a diary kept by Neill’s stern and distant father–a secret diary, only discovered after his father committed suicide.

When Neill meets Rachel, a young woman in search for meaning anywhere and everywhere, he’s forced to confront the costs of a life without complications. When the AI “Dr. Bassett” becomes more than just life-like, Neill must finally confront the loss he built his life to escape…

“Hutchins is an unsentimental and compassionate creator of vivid characters…. [A] charming, warmhearted, and thought-provoking novel.”
—The New York Times Book Review

“A terrific debut, an intriguing, original take on family and friendship, lust and longing, grief and forgiveness.”
—Associated Press

“Every once in a while a novel comes along and speaks to a generation of men, making a joke of the notion that they don’t read fiction the way women supposedly do: for self-preservation, for growth, for the that’s-just-like-me factor.”
—The Guardian (London)

“Hutchins hits that sweet spot where humor and melancholy comfortably coexist.”
—Entertainment Weekly

“One of the most humane (not to mention moving and hilarious) stories l’ve read in a long time.”
—Interview”

“Hutchins manages to address weighty questions (e.g., what makes us human?) without ever losing his sly sense of humor in this witty, insightful Silicon Valley comedy of manners.”
—Library Journal”

SF’s most exciting new novelist.”
—The Huffington Post

Foreign translations: Dutch (De Bezige Bij), Italian (Einaudi), German (Piper), French (Belfond), Hebrew (Keter), Korean (Book Folio/Tsai Fong), Estonian (Tänapäev), Spanish (Alba), and Portuguese (Companhia das Letras); UK edition, Viking.