Culpability

Culpability is a 2025 family drama and techno-mystery written by novelist and academic Bruce Holsinger. After the Cassidy-Shaw family’s self-driving minivan collides with an oncoming car, killing its two occupants, questions swirl about who, or what, is responsible for the crash. Seventeen-year-old Charlie was behind the wheel, parents Lorelei and Noah were distracted by work, and daughters Alice and Izzy both harbor secrets that could implicate them. Interwoven with excerpts from Lorelei’s research on the morality of artificial intelligence (AI), the novel interrogates AI’s integration into everyday life and explores themes including Negotiating Responsibility in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, The Complexities of Technological Dependence, and Socioeconomic Disparities and the Security of Wealth. Culpability was the Oprah’s Book Club pick for July 2025.

This guide refers to the Spiegel and Grau 2025 hardcover edition.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of death, bullying, mental illness, substance use, and sexual content.

Plot Summary

The novel’s main storyline, narrated by Noah Cassidy, is interspersed with excerpts from Lorelei Shaw’s book, Silicon Souls: On the Culpability of Artificial Minds, in which she explores humanity’s responsibility for the morality of AI systems.

Noah, a lawyer, met his wife, Lorelei, a world-renowned AI ethicist, while she worked on her PhD, and they raised their three children, Charlie, Alice, and Izzy, happily in Maryland. The family is traveling to Delaware for 17-year-old Charlie’s last youth lacrosse tournament before he goes to college. Charlie sits behind the wheel, overseeing the SensTrek minivan’s self-driving system, while Noah sits next to him, working on his laptop. Lorelei and the girls sit in the back, each distracted by their own devices.

Alice suddenly screams, and Charlie jerks the wheel, hitting an oncoming car and killing its passengers, Phil and Judith Drummond. Noah and Charlie are uninjured, but Alice sustains a concussion, Izzy breaks her leg, and Lorelei strains her neck. Lorelei’s sister Julia helps the family at the hospital and warns Noah not to let Charlie talk to the police since he could be found liable for the crash, regardless of the auto-drive.

In the wake of the accident, the girls struggle to recover from their injuries, and Charlie starts sneaking out to drink and smoke. The family starts therapy, and Noah worries that the accident will exacerbate the symptoms of Lorelei’s obsessive-compulsive disorder. Alice texts nonstop with an AI chatbot named Blair about her pain and a secret she knows about the crash. Detective Lacey Morrissey investigates the family while her digital forensics team examines the minivan’s data logs. Noah refuses to let the children speak to the police, worried that they will accidentally implicate Charlie.

A month later, the family travels to a vacation rental home in the Northern Neck of Virginia. The formerly charming home across the inlet is now a busy modern compound. Charlie and Noah learn that the estate’s new owner is tech mogul Daniel Monet, who arrives in his private helicopter with his daughter Eurydice, who is instantly attracted to Charlie. The constant sound of Monet’s helicopter during a company retreat disturbs the family’s peace. Despite wanting to disconnect on vacation, Lorelei obsessively scrolls on her phone, reading about the Drummonds and misguided AI drone attacks.

Charlie and Eurydice spend a day together out on the water, though Charlie leaves his life vest behind. Noah knows that Lorelei will worry if she sees the vest, so he hides it. He meets their retired next-door neighbors, Patrick and Edith Carmichael, who eerily remind him of the Drummonds. Lorelei takes off her neck brace a day early and starts working again, trying to understand the accident through equations and data. Noah peeks at her notebook and finds his own name in her shorthand scribbles.

Worried about Charlie’s absence, Lorelei frantically paddleboards to Monet’s house to fetch him. Noah follows and watches his wife go ashore with Monet, whom she seems to know. Noah returns home alone, frustrated that his wife has a mysterious life because of her important work. The air conditioner breaks, and the property managers can’t have it fixed for days.

When Lorelei returns with Charlie, Alice confesses to her parents that she saw Charlie texting before the accident; she screamed so that he would see the oncoming car. Lorelei attacks Noah for always enabling Charlie’s bad behavior, but Noah argues that she was as oblivious as he was.

The heat exacerbates Noah’s irritation, and he can’t stop thinking about Charlie going to jail, especially since he’s been ignoring calls from Detective Morrissey. Noah hires a lawyer, Evan Ramsay III, without telling Charlie or Lorelei, but they find out when Ramsay calls Charlie directly. Charlie resents his father for hiring a lawyer, thinking that it makes him look more guilty, and Noah wishes that their life could go back to how it was before the crash.

Noah calls for a family vote to head home early. However, just as they’re about to leave, a van arrives with new air-conditioning units. They stay at the house, and as Noah reads an article about Monet, a nagging suspicion grows that his wife is closer to Monet than she’ll admit.

Noah takes Alice and Izzy into town, Eurydice teaches Charlie how to sail, and Lorelei spends time alone at the house. Later, Noah and Lorelei argue about Charlie’s culpability for the accident since Lorelei is now convinced that the AI system is to blame. Noah, however, believes that Charlie will be charged with vehicular manslaughter for distracted driving.

Lorelei accepts an invitation from Monet for the family to attend his company retreat’s final dinner. As the hour of the event arrives, she becomes reluctant to go. At Monet’s mansion, Noah meets the billionaire, who reveals that he owns their vacation house and ordered the air-conditioning units after Lorelei texted him.

Noah imagines his wife having an affair with Monet. He gets drunk and avoids Lorelei all night, choosing instead to fraternize with Monet’s employees. When he learns that Charlie plans to stay out late that night, Noah drunkenly argues with him, accusing him of being careless about his future. Charlie and Eurydice wander away, and Noah returns home with his family, hoping that he’ll sober up for Detective Morrissey’s visit in the morning.

Morrissey arrives early with a search warrant for Charlie’s and Izzy’s phones. Izzy confesses that she was texting Charlie before the accident, but Charlie is nowhere to be found. Monet’s security team comes looking for Eurydice, and the family learns that both teens are missing. Eurydice’s sailboat is gone from the boathouse, and its tracker is moving closer to the open sea.

Noah joins Monet to search for the boat, and they find Charlie unconscious on its deck, without Eurydice. The police question Charlie at the hospital, and Monet immediately accuses him of drugging and coercing Eurydice out onto the stormy water. Noah fends off reporters, but it’s only a matter of time before the news reports on Eurydice’s disappearance.

When Lorelei and Noah are finally alone together, Noah confronts her about her relationship with Monet. Lorelei is incredulous that he suspects her of cheating, but she’s legally bound to keep quiet about her work.

After Charlie wakes up post-surgery, he explains that Eurydice gave him MDMA and wanted to take her boat out at night. A storm suddenly hit and threw Eurydice overboard. A day later, Eurydice is found alive in a nearby nature preserve, having made her way to shore. Though doctors initially doubt that she’ll survive, she makes a full recovery.

Morrissey can’t arrest Charlie since the district attorney found the van’s auto-drive system at fault. The Drummond family settled a liability lawsuit with IntelliGen, the van’s parent company. Despite this, Morrissey lectures Noah, advising that Charlie receive some kind of punishment so that his bad behavior doesn’t continue.

While the family packs up to go home, Lorelei amends her non-disclosure agreement so that she can explain her work to Noah. She has been consulting with Monet for two years on an algorithm for NaviTech, which is the SensTrek van’s operating system. She’s been so skittish because she feels responsible for the accident and for any future mistakes that NaviTech makes. Lorelei also confesses to orchestrating the Drummonds’ settlement through IntelliGen, which is why she needed to stay near Monet. Lorelei wanted to work with Monet to save lives, and she’s still confident that her algorithm and autonomous driving will improve society.

The family returns home to their regular lives. Lorelei and Charlie visit the Drummonds to take accountability for their actions. Alice learns that the chatbot saved her messages, in which she admitted to screaming at Charlie to get his attention instead of alerting her parents to his texting.

The Pentagon tries to recruit Lorelei to work for the Defense Department designing an algorithm for hive-mind defensive drones. Lorelei reveals to Noah that her NaviTech algorithm is already being used in offensive weaponry since Monet adapted her work for the Army. The weight of being the AI system’s moral consciousness is crushing Lorelei, who feels like the only person who knows enough to shoulder the task. Noah tells her not to take the job; instead, he urges Lorelei to write out her thoughts so that everyday people can understand the threats of AI.

Charlie defers his admittance to college and neglects his physical therapy. Charlie and Noah spend a day together, and as they reminisce, Noah sobs uncontrollably, grieving for the life that Charlie could have led if the accident never happened.