Oprah’s Book Club Pick * New Yorker Best Books of 2025 * 2026 Aspen Words Literary Prize
Longlist * Kirkus Best Books of 2025 * Real Simple Best Books of 2025 * Washington Post
Noteable Fiction 2025 * NPR's 2025 "Books We Love" * “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
gripping impossibly timely thriller." —one of NPR's "Books We Love" 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.
