Culpability - by Bruce Holsinger (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

From the bestselling author of the "wise and addictive" (New York Times) The Gifted School comes a riveting family drama about moral responsibility in the age of artificial intelligence.

When the Cassidy-Shaws' autonomous minivan collides with an oncoming car, killing an elderly couple, 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 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

"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

About the Author

Bruce Holsinger is the author of four novels, including The Displacements and The Gifted School, and many works of nonfiction, most recently On Parchment: Animals, Archives, and the Making of Culture from Herodotus to the Digital Age (Yale University Press). His books have been recognized with the Colorado Book Award, the John Hurt Fisher Prize, the Philip Brett Award, the John Nicholas Brown Prize, the Modern Language Association's Prize for a First Book, and others. 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 is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship. Holsinger teaches in the department of English at the University of Virginia, where he specializes in medieval literature and modern critical thought and serves as editor of the quarterly journal New Literary History. He also teaches craft classes and serves as board chairman for WriterHouse, a local nonprofit in Charlottesville.