Merciless, incisive, and unapologetic; endearing, funny, and fiercely kind. That’s the duality of Love, Theoretically, Ali Hazelwood’s third romance novel, published in June this year. Through the adventures of Elsie Hannaway, adjunct professor of theoretical physics, Hazelwood portrays the United States sharply divided between rich and poor, an academic world riddled with infighting, and a society where traditional social expectations still dominate. Against this depressing backdrop, Hazelwood’s cast of main characters appear like lights: twinkling, erratic, full of dreams and the desire to do right. While they don’t always succeed, they continuously strive; and the fact that they do so in the everyday dances of the digital age, makes the novel a hope-giving read. More than anything else, Love, Theoretically is sincere: in Hazelwood’s love of her genre, in the verisimilitude of the setting, in the richness exploration of its characters, and in its politics.  

The plot is simple but effective. During the day, Elsie Hannaway grades papers, commutes between universities, and tries to get her students to learn something. In the evenings, she poses as a girlfriend, taking advantage of a lifetime’s training in the art of people-pleasing to tailor herself to the requirements of each ‘fake-date.’ Her day and night jobs collide when she interviews for a faculty position at MIT and runs into Dr Jonathan Smith-Turner – known previously to her as only Jack Smith, the mysteriously hostile brother of her favourite client. Turns out that Smith-Turner is also on the faculty of MIT, a famed experimentalist physicist, and part of the selection committee. And – just to make things more interesting – he once pranked the most prestigious journal in theoretical physics. A prank which accomplished three things:  

• The near-ruin of Elsie’s mentor  
• Discrediting theoretical physics as a prestigious academic field  
• Inspiring Elsie to hold a life-long grudge.  

From this beginning, romantic tensions and misunderstandings ensue, against the scenery of chilly Boston winters and feuding schools of physics.

I can’t help but laugh at Elsie Hannaway. Not because her life is funny, but because Hazelwood knows her genre, and the role that comedy plays in the typical modern romance novel. While Elsie’s financial situation is precarious, her health complicated by diabetes, and her family life the equivalent of The Song That Never Ends, the way she tackles her problems is somewhere between hilarious and inspiring. One of my favourite lines occurs when her mother calls – just before Elsie presents a research talk – to panic about the impact of her  brothers’ feuding on the family’s plans for Thanksgiving. Instead of telling her mother to get a grip, Elsie makes the following offer: “If by November things aren’t better, I’ll … look into rope restraints and cheap storage space, I promise. Gotta go, Mom.”

We know what has to happen. We know that Elsie needs to learn how to say ‘no’, how to set boundaries. We know that she can no more keep peace in the family in perpetuity, any more than she can “give everyone the me they wanted, needed, craved.” We sense it in her desire to tell her roommate that she prefers The Twilight Saga to auteur cinema, and in her fatigue with her mentor’s perpetual mangling of her name (Elise, instead of Elsie.) We, the reader, know this from the beginning. We also know – it is a romance novel, after all – that she’ll get there in the end. And until she gets there, we’re happy to cry and laugh when we see what she tries first.  

Hazelwood also makes a subtle but strong political argument through Elsie’s experience. It could be summarized as: forget respectability politics. The equation which guides Elsie through her life –  ‘to get ahead, please people, by conforming to their expectations’ – is a personal application of a politics of respectability, where someone from a disrespected context conforms in some way to expectations placed on them. Because these expectations are usually articulated by people in positions of power and privilege, it is hoped that gates which might otherwise be closed to a person might be opened by the gatekeeper at hand. But in the end, ‘getting ahead’ might translate into nothing more than being able to live. As is the case in this novel; getting ahead professionally for Elsie also means getting out of a place where she can barely afford the insulin required for her to stay alive.     

As both a woman in the male-dominated STEM field and an impecunious adjunct professor, Elsie starts as a believer of this philosophy. It’s initially fruitful: she impresses the other professors on the hiring committee with her work and her performance during the interviewing process. However, her success in the latter case is based on her tailoring herself to each professor in one-on-one interactions and in pandering to the prejudices of the (nearly all-male) class of experimentalist graduate students, whom she must teach a trial class regarding the ultimate importance of theoretical physics. I couldn’t help but cringe, when Elsie, with deliberate sweetness, informs a supercilious grad student that theoretical physics certainly is arcane, but because the mathematics of it can be useful to experimentalists, theoretical physics still has utility and value. My cringing had nothing to do with my appreciation for theoretical physics; I have no appreciation for theoretical physics, knowing absolutely nothing about it. It had everything to do with the subtle but clear parallel between Elsie’s manipulation of the class and her evaluation of herself. For most of her life, Elsie has measured her usefulness to other people and presented herself as someone who can meet the requirements they have; and now, in her late twenties, this has grown from a habit into an internalized view of herself.  But even in the novel’s rising action, we get a clue about the likely result of this path. During her first meeting with Professor Monica Salt, who recruited her for the interview, Elsie once again assesses someone’s requirements of her: “I know the Elsie she wants. A gladiator, a fighter.” But – as we painfully discover with her – someone who recruits a gladiator rarely cares about the gladiator’s survival.

In the end, Elsie’s professional success is achieved, not thanks to anyone on the selection committee, who largely see her in terms of her gender or as a foot-soldier for their academic feuds. It’s offered to her by someone who has read her work and finds it both excellent and useful for their research. They offer her a post-doctoral position at MIT, a collaboration with them, funding out of their research grants, a step forward for Elsie’s career. A step forward which would also end Elsie’s financial insecurity and her precarious access to healthcare. It’s a stark contrast to her current employment situation, teaching as an adjunct professor at three different universities. But most vivid of all is the scene where she takes the job; her decision is greeted with incredulity, wonder, and then a gleeful hug from her new colleague. There, too, the contrast is clear: between a hiring committee of established professors who would take her, under the condition that she modify her personality to suit them and serve their agenda, versus another rising star in academia who wants her because of the quality of her work.

The message to the reader is clear as well: people who see you as inferior, because of who you are, are not going to change their minds if you try to fit yourself into their expectations. The reward for making yourself convenient and useful is being used, often as a tool. Advancement is secured when you find the people who recognize your merit; and while that’s an inherently chancy business, it yields much greater reward than ‘playing the game’.     

Key to Elsie’s character development is the romantic relationship between her and Jack. Jack’s hostility dissipates, as we and Elsie come to understand him better.  Through their relationship, Hazelwood also offers us an intriguing portrait of a progressive masculinity. Jack-Smith Turner is physically imposing: tall, chiselled, with discreet but striking tattoos on muscled arms. Capable of scooping Elsie up in a bridal carry if she passes out from hypoglycaemia. He also has the kind of assertive personality that has no hesitation about using his physical or intellectual advantages. But – before you start edging away! – he has two other notable qualities to his character. First, Jack drinks his ‘respect women’ juice like it’s his favourite beer. Better, Hazelwood shows us this feature of his character, rather than telling it, through his relationship with secondary female characters: one of his graduate students, who trusts Jack implicitly; his grandmother, whom he adores; his best friend, whom we later encounter in the novel. He repeatedly uses his privileged position as a man in STEM to make it a safer and fairer place for women, including for Elsie herself.    

One of the most notable aspects of their relationship is how Jack pushes our heroine: not into having sex, as the male leads of previous romance eras might have done, but into fully inhabiting herself. Jack relentlessly calls Elsie “on her bullshit”, as he puts it, because he is genuinely interested in knowing what she thinks, feels, and experiences. While he occasionally veers into the territory of paternalism in how he tries to help Elsie overcome her personal problems – indeed, it catalyses the mandatory third act blow-up – Jack simply isn’t interested in dominating his partner. He praises Elsie’s brilliance in her work, insists on her setting the physical pace of their relationship and enjoys acceding to her wishes. This last part is best shown in a cozy, sweet scene where he presents her with their entertainment for a movie night: a box set of The Twilight Saga.  

Best of all for the reader of the romance novel, this respect carries over into the bedroom. Jack’s relentless campaign to understand Elsie inspires her to equal heights of honesty and determination to get to know him as well; it culminates in a dynamic where both of them are focussed on knowing and loving each other, physically and emotionally. And – Hazelwood doesn’t disappoint here either – the sex is spicy, tastefully written, without ever being absurd or unrealistic. In other words, it continues her commitment to honesty, in all things.   

To contribute the obligatory pound of flesh: this commitment to honesty does sometimes come at the expense of style. Hazelwood’s narrative is smooth, quickly delivered, but Elsie’s first-person narration leads to linguistic oddities which are either endearing or awkward, depending on the eye of the reader. Notable examples include Hazelwood referring to Elsie’s phone as “the iTwat” – in theory, because its pattern of screen-cracks resembles a vulva – and her sometimes gratuitous use of the colon, and fragmented sentences. But – in all honesty – it still works. The prose might be clunky, but we’re in Elsie’s shoes, and Elsie will never be mistaken for ‘a cool girl.’ She is who she is: a nerd, an academic hopeful, a physicist; a stressed-out woman with a chronic health condition, a people-pleaser in recovery, a girl trying to figure out relationships. And we cheer when she finally re-introduces herself, towards the denouement of the novel: “I’m Elsie. I really love cheese, particle physics, and movies with sparkly vampires.”