Culpability (Oprah's Book Club) - by Bruce Holsinger (Hardcover)

About the Book

"When the Cassidy-Shaws' autonomous minivan collides with an oncoming car, seventeen-year-old Charlie is in the driver's seat, with his father, Noah, riding shotgun. In the back seat, tweens Alice and Izzy are on their phones, while their mother, Lorelei, a world leader in the field of artificial intelligence, is absorbed in her work. Yet each family member harbors a secret, implicating them each in the accident. During a weeklong recuperation on the Chesapeake Bay, the family confronts the excruciating moral dilemmas triggered by the crash. Noah tries to hold the family together as a seemingly routine police investigation jeopardizes Charlie's future. Alice and Izzy turn strangely furtive. And Lorelei's odd behavior tugs at Noah's suspicions that there is a darker truth behind the incident -- suspicions heightened by the sudden intrusion of Daniel Monet, a tech mogul whose mysterious history with Lorelei hints at betrayal. When Charlie falls for Monet's teenaged daughter, the stakes are raised even higher in this propulsive family drama that is also a fascinating exploration of the moral responsibility and ethical consequences of AI"--

Book Synopsis

- OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK - NATIONAL BESTSELLER -

"I was riveted until the very last shocking sentence!"--Oprah Winfrey

"The most of-the-moment novel I've read all year, and it's the book of the summer."--Real Simple

"If you want an engaging novel sure to spark great discussion about that thorny [AI] future, this is it."--Ron Charles, The Washington Post

A suspenseful family drama about moral responsibility in the age of artificial intelligence.

When the Cassidy-Shaws' autonomous minivan collides with an oncoming car, seventeen-year-old Charlie is in the driver's seat, with his father, Noah, riding shotgun. In the back seat, tweens Alice and Izzy are on their phones, while their mother, Lorelei, a world leader in the field of artificial intelligence, is absorbed in her work. Yet each family member harbors a secret, implicating them all in the tragic accident.

During a weeklong recuperation on the Chesapeake Bay, the family confronts the excruciating moral dilemmas triggered by the crash. Noah tries to hold the family together as a seemingly routine police investigation jeopardizes Charlie's future. Alice and Izzy turn strangely furtive. And Lorelei's odd behavior tugs at Noah's suspicions that there is a darker truth behind the incident--suspicions heightened by the sudden intrusion of Daniel Monet, a tech mogul whose mysterious history with Lorelei hints at betrayal. When Charlie falls for Monet's teenaged daughter, the stakes are raised even higher in this propulsive family drama that is also a fascinating exploration of the moral responsibility and ethical consequences of AI.

Culpability explores a world newly shaped by chatbots, autonomous cars, drones, and other nonhuman forces in ways that are thrilling, challenging, and unimaginably provocative.

Review Quotes

"For all its eerie timeliness, Culpability should age better than yesterday's Instagram post. Holsinger, a medievalist at the University of Virginia, has a sharp eye for the eternal values and foibles that animate human affairs. . . . The plot of his latest book [is] a searching examination of family dynamics and the burdens that no machine will ever lift for us. . . . For all the story's contemporary details, Culpability is a 19th-century novel in the spirit of William Dean Howells--explicitly concerned with morality. That's not to say it's didactic, only that it presents deep ethical questions about fault and responsibility. It's also an irresistibly anxious book, the kind that scratches all your worries about the fragility of upper-middle-class life, the financial and legal perils that lurk behind every open-ended risk we take."--Ron Charles, The Washington Post

"In this tightly paced novel, domestic intrigue is transposed into the fraught world of AI. . . . This Zeitgeisty discussion is balanced with plenty of drama: as it turns out, the family vacation house is next to a compound owned by a shady tech billionaire--a discovery that unleashes a torrent of deception."--New Yorker

"This is a wonderful book. . . . [It] has everything for someone like me. . . . It's an incredibly nuanced book that brings up a lot of issues and, most importantly, allows you to talk about them in a way that's discernable. I'm recommending it to lots of people."--Kara Swisher, On with Kara Swisher

"A family drama with a shocking twist. Bruce Holsinger tackles timely topics and the ties that bind in Culpability . . . a who's who of hot-button issues, including AI, corporate greed, tech addiction and even a subtle subplot about the encroachment of youth sports on family life. But the topic most likely to spark appreciative group texts among book club members of a certain age has to do with a less trendy subject: teenagers. Specifically, the relationship between a father and his 17-year-old son, which Holsinger depicts in all its maddening complexity. Culpability always returns to Noah and Charlie. . . . We meet them at a tender time--a 'hinge of life, ' as Noah calls it--and Holsinger does it justice."--Elisabeth Egan, New York Times

"Holsinger seems to have created his own subgenre of psychosocial thriller, spinning super-smart, propulsive page-turners out of zeitgeisty worries . . . If you are not already hooked on Holsinger, it's time to join the club."--Kirkus (starred review)

"In this twisty family drama . . . Holsinger grapples evocatively with the trade-offs of automated life. This timely tale leaves readers with much to chew on."--Publishers Weekly

"Riveting . . . a propulsive, difficult-to-put down novel. . . . The best kind of suspense usually comes from realistic situations where we are, as the title hints, somehow culpable for the bad things that happen to us, and that's true here. . . . Holsinger, whose previous novels include The Gifted School, is adept at capturing the tiny errors humans in the same family can make, thinking they're protecting each other. . . . You needn't have been in a trauma such as a fatal car wreck to recognize these people, who are blessed with the illogical logic we all sometimes fall victim to."--Minnesota Star Tribune

"Secrets swirl and the stakes rise in this sharply modern family drama."--People ("Best New Book")

"Culpability is the thinking man's page-turner, absolutely of the moment."--Newsday

"Culpability is a thought-provoking and riveting meditation on family, parental love, morality and artificial intelligence--and where they all intersect. A wise, propulsive, and deeply powerful novel."--Laura Dave, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Last Thing He Told Me

"Bruce Holsinger has written a novel that is as propulsive as it is thought-provoking, a thriller with a brain. Reminiscent of the work of Richard Powers and Don DeLillo, Culpability is a compelling narrative about the perils of the digital age while addressing the challenges of living as a family. This novel might feel futuristic, except it isn't. It's happening now."--Mary Morris, author of The Red House

"Culpability is whip-smart, fascinating, and gripping. It reads fast like a thriller, but this novel takes on the great cultural challenges of today: AI, electronic surveillance, and billionaire culture. A successful but fragile family collides with these forces and wrestles them down to life-size. I was recommending this book to friends before I'd even finished it."--Stephen Kiernan, author of The Glass Chateau and The Baker's Secret

"In Culpability, Bruce Holsinger brings his sharp eye and fearless storytelling to one of the most urgent questions of our time: What does it mean to be responsible in a world shaped by systems we no longer fully control? Part family drama, part techno-thriller, this riveting novel traces the moral fallout of a self-driving car crash through the lens of a fractured family. With piercing insight and deep compassion, Holsinger captures the unsettling drift between human intention and algorithmic consequence--never losing sight of the fragile, fallible people at the heart of the story. Gripping, wise, and eerily prescient, Culpability is a family novel for the age of AI."--Christina Baker Kline, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Orphan Train

"Culpability is a wildly timely book, an exploration of the ethics of the technology age tucked inside a gripping story about family and loyalty. It's equally emotional, entertaining, and important, and I lingered over every page."--Janelle Brown, author of What Kind of Paradise

"A fascinating, thought-provoking novel. Bruce Holsinger is a master at combining revelatory social commentary about important, timely issues (AI this time) with deeply moving insights about family dynamics. I highly, highly recommend this book."--Angie Kim, author of Happiness Falls

About the Author

Bruce Holsinger is the author of Culpability, the 116th selection of Oprah's Book Club and hailed by Oprah Winfrey as "a must-read for all generations." His four previous novels include The Gifted School, which won the Colorado Book Award, and The Displacements, the inaugural title in the United Nations Read for Action Book Club. He has also written many works of nonfiction, most recently On Parchment: Animals, Archives, and the Making of Culture from Herodotus to the Digital Age. His essays and reviews have appeared in The New York Times, Vanity Fair, and many other publications, and he has been profiled on NPR's Weekend Edition, Here & Now, and Marketplace. He teaches English at the University of Virginia and is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship.