Culpability
Oprah's Book Club Pick 2025
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2.0 • 1 Rating
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
"Compelling."―Literary Review
"An irresistibly anxious book."―The Washington Post
"A family drama with a shocking twist."―The New York Times
"I was riveted until the very last shocking sentence!"―Oprah Winfrey
When the Cassidy-Shaws' driverless minivan fatally collides with an oncoming car, seventeen-year-old Charlie is in the driver's seat. His father, Noah, is beside him, and in the back with his younger siblings is his mother, Lorelei—a renowned AI researcher—who is lost in her work.
During a weeklong retreat on the Chesapeake Bay, the Cassidy-Shaws wrestle with the moral fallout of the crash as a routine police enquiry starts to unravel. As Lorelei's increasingly odd behaviour stirs her husband's suspicions that there may be a darker truth behind the incident, the arrival of tech billionaire Daniel Monet (who has a mysterious history with Lorelei) cements them. When Charlie falls for Monet's teenage daughter, tensions among the Cassidy-Shaws reach breaking point.
A psychosocial thriller and a propulsive family drama, Culpability explores a world newly shaped by non-human forces such as chatbots and autonomous cars, and forces us to examine our own relationship to artificial intelligence, and the nuanced ways in which we are all, in fact, culpable.
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.
