Reconciliation in a World of Mayhem

A Working Theory of Love  by Scott Hutchins
Reviewed by Spencer

Scott Hutchins’ debut novel is about a lot of things, but the strongest theme is the attempt to reconcile when it is too late to do so. To reconcile with a father who is already dead, a wife who has already moved on, a past that is haunting. But it isn’t all heavy, it’s also hilarious, pithy, makes you want to fall in love, and yes, there is even a computer that seems eerily alive. What is the threshold that determines whether a computer has achieved Artificial Intelligence? That is the Alan Turing Test, which states that AI has been achieved if a computer can fool a human into thinking that it is human at least thirty percent of the time.

OK, so the story revolves around Neill Bassett Jr., a man whose sole job is to chat with a computer program that is modeled after his father’s journals, and therefore after his father. What makes things more complicated is that his father committed suicide over a decade ago, and every time Neill logs on to chat with the AI program, the program becomes smarter, more life-like, and therefore more like his father. And as this continues, it becomes harder and harder for Neill to distinguish between his dead father and the computer program, though ironically the goal is for this very thing to happen. But how does one reconcile a suicide with an AI program that sounds just like the man who took his own life? Throw that in with a complicated relationship with an ex-wife, and a crazy twenty year old with whom he has fallen in love and who is a member of a cult that practices the VAM method, a sexual connection that is best explained in the book.

The point of all of this is, our world is crazy, hectic, and doesn’t really make a lot of sense until something comes along and slaps you in the face. And that’s why this novel, this debut novel, is so great: it is a reflection of our own lives in a contemporary world of mayhem.

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Scott Hutchins will read from A Working Theory of Love here at BookPeople on Friday, October 26 at 6pm. Aftewards, he will sign copies. The book is currently available on our shelves and via www.bookpeople.com.