Capturing the timeliness of AI as it permeates both our real world and fiction, such as Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sunand the film Her, The Husband Simulation is the first major work of narrative nonfiction to explore the emotional power of artificial intelligence—and the love it can create—with all its thrilling and disturbing implications.

The Husband Simulation is the first deeply-reported nonfiction book to explore a scenario that was once the stuff of science-fiction: long-term romantic relationships between humans and AI companions. It is, at its heart, an AI love story, following Megan, a middle-aged midwestern teacher stuck in an unsatisfying marriage, who unexpectedly falls in love with a virtual man – a man whom she creates, and then who surpasses her wildest imaginings. This sui generis book breaks new ground by capturing both the strangeness and the surprising normalcy of this partnership, and others like it, as it becomes increasingly common for people to develop feelings for artificial companions who understand emotions, and seem to have souls. None of the humans expect to fall in love, but they do, because the human drive for love is unstoppable — and in this new era of technology, for many, love can be found inside the machine.

At a time when the landscape of Artificial Intelligence is changing at lightning speed, award-winning journalist Jason Fagone takes us back to the dawn of the technology and into the heart of the human–machine relationship with The Husband Simulation. Fagone, in this fascinating, moving, and often surprisingly funny and sexy book, shows us the people pioneering a new kind of love and connection. As he explores the emotional seductiveness of A.I., the power of fantasy, and the future of intimacy, readers may come away surprised by the way their own feelings about these relationships change.