Culpability
Oprah's Book Club Pick 2025
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4.1 • 14 Ratings
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
When the Cassidy-Shaws' driverless minivan fatally collides with another car, seventeen-year-old Charlie is in the driver's seat. His father, Noah, sits beside him, while his mother, Lorelei—a renowned AI researcher—is distracted by her work in the back.
Retreating to the Chesapeake Bay, the family grapples with the aftermath as a routine police inquiry begins to unravel. Lorelei's increasingly strange behaviour, the arrival of a tech billionaire with ties to her past, and Charlie's growing attraction to the billionaire's daughter push the family towards breaking point.
Blending psychological suspense with family drama, Culpability explores the moral complexities of a world shaped by artificial intelligence, asking what responsibility means when humans are no longer the only ones making decisions.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Holsinger (The Displacements) plumbs moral responsibility in the age of AI in this twisty family drama. Seventeen-year-old lacrosse star Charlie Cassidy-Shaw is behind the wheel of the family's self-driving minivan, traveling with his parents and two younger sisters to a tournament, when they collide with another car, killing both passengers. Charlie and his family, however, sustain only minor injuries. In the aftermath, the family returns to a beach house on the Chesapeake Bay to recuperate. When the police hint that the car's digital forensics might point to Charlie's guilt, his lawyer father Noah retains a high-priced defense attorney, while his 13-year-old sister Alice texts with her AI-powered "friend" about a secret that would implicate Charlie in the crash, and the app pushes her to confess to their parents. The plot thickens when Charlie's mother, Lorelei, a prominent AI ethicist, spends time with their tech billionaire neighbor, prompting Noah to worry that she's having an affair (the truth turns out to be more nefarious). As each family member wrestles with their responsibility for the crash and how much trust they should put in AI, Holsinger grapples evocatively with the trade-offs of automated life. This timely tale leaves readers with much to chew on.
