A Working Theory of Love

"Electrifying. Clever, funny and very entertaining". (The New York Times). "Tremendous, big, clever...Every once in a while a novel comes along and speaks to a generation...Hutchins expertly charts the terrain of love, and what it means to fall, and fall hard". (Guardian). "Touching and extremely funny, Neill Bassett is a disenchanted bachelor for the Noughties generation. Brilliantly achieved". (GQ). "Likened to the work of Nick Hornby ...humorous and quietly profound". (Observer). "Worthy of Chuck Palahniuk...Hutchins' satirical take on 21st-century existence is sharply observed". (Independent). "Smart, breezy, an assured debut...Mixing the everyman likeability of Nick Hornby with a splash of the offbeat intellect of Douglas Coupland". (Metro). "Zeitgeisty, poignant and funny". (The Herald). "Inventive, intelligent and sometimes hilarious. One of the pleasures here is Hutchins' terrific grasp of the zeitgest". (San Francisco Chronicle). "A brainy, bright, laughter-through-tears, can't-stop-reading-until-it's-over kind of novel". (Gary Shteyngart). "Terrific. Throughout, Hutchins hits that sweet spot where humour and melancholy comfortably coexist". (Entertainment Weekly). "Original, wise, full of serious thinking, serious fun and the shock of the new. Astonishing". (Adam Johnson, author of The Orphan Master's Son). "Terrific. And intriguing, original take on family and friendship, lust and longing, grief and forgiveness". (Associated Press). "Wonderful. Brilliantly observant about the way we live now. Comic and haunting". (Charles Baxter, author of The Feast of Love). "Beautifully written and consistently engaging. Charming, warm-hearted and thought-provoking". (The New York Times). "Inventive and engaging". (New Yorker). Recently divorced, thirty-six-year-old Neill Bassett is engaged in an extraordinary experiment. By day, he works at a Silicon Valley software company, where he is helping to create the world's first 'living' artificial intelligence - a computer programme based on the personality of his late father. By night, he is attempting to reconcile his own emotional shortcomings with the unexpected attractions of an intriguing young woman called Rachel. The question is: what does it take to be a real human being? Set in San Francisco, where anything goes (and regularly does), this recklessly witty, formidably funny, outrageously honest novel captures the exquisite agony of contemporary relationships. Scott Hutchins teaches at Stanford University, California. His work has appeared in StoryQuarterly, The Rumpus, The New York Times and Esquire. This is his first novel.