Culpability

Reviews / Votes

"A thought-provoking and riveting meditation on family, parental love, morality and artificial intelligence-and where they all intersect. Wise, propulsive, and deeply powerful." * Laura Dave, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Last Thing He Told Me * "Reminiscent of the work of Richard Powers and Don DeLillo, Culpability is a compelling narrative about the perils of the digital age." * Mary Morris, author of The Red House * "A beachy family drama with a shocking twist." * The New York Times * "The human race wakes every morning with a new worry, and among such anxieties at present is artificial intelligence. Bruce Holsinger's Culpability functions efficiently on a variety of levels as family drama, thriller and a sober examination of what current technological developments have in store for us." * Financial Times * "Culpability is a stark reminder of our vulnerability to AI and the dangers posed by omnipresent technology." * Literary Review * "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) * "A wildly timely book, an exploration of the ethics of the technology age tucked inside a gripping story about family and loyalty." * Janelle Brown, author of What Kind of Paradise * "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 * "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. * Stephen Kiernan, author of The Glass Chateau and The Baker's Secret * "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 * "Powerful and immensely thought-provoking. A novel with its finger absolutely on the pulse." * Quentin Bates, author of Cold Malice * "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." * The New Yorker * 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.... 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.... We meet them at a tender time-a 'hinge of life,'-and Holsinger does it justice." * The New York Times * "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." * The Washington Post * "Secrets swirl and the stakes rise in this sharply modern family drama." * People ("Best New Book") * "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 * "A taut psychological thriller about secrets, ambition and the lies we tell ourselves and others." * Seattle Times * "Culpability is the thinking man's page-turner, absolutely of the moment." * Newsday * "A thought-provoking and riveting meditation on family, parental love, morality and artificial intelligence-and where they all intersect." * Laura Dave, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Last Thing He Told Me *