By Page H. Gifford
On September 2, at 7 pm, Friends of the Fluvanna Library welcomes author Bruce Holsinger,
who will discuss his novel “Culpability,” which was featured on the 2025 Oprah Book Club list.
This contemporary novel explores questions of human responsibility and technology and marks a departure for Holsinger, whose previous novels were set in medieval England.
A native Virginian and English Professor at UVA, specializing in the literature and culture of
medieval Europe, he concentrates his academic work and teaching on writers like Chaucer and
works such as Beowulf.
“The original version of the story had nothing to do with AI. The premise was simple: a family
of five suffers a catastrophic accident, and every member of the family is responsible in some
way,” he said.
The narrative then morphed into a novel about AI when he added an autonomous, self-driving car. From there, it became “a story about moral responsibility in the age of AI.”
He added that this is ultimately a human story about family, marriage, parenting, and intergenerational tensions, while also exploring the convenience, ethics, and dangers of AI through the characters’ use of the technology.
“Fiction allows us to explore the relationship between the plausible and the implausible, the
present and the future. I wouldn’t say that other genres can’t do this, but the novel is a great genre for doing thought experiments about technology and other social factors.”
Something that his characters are faced with in the novel is: if a machine makes a terrible
decision, who is accountable?
“There are all kinds of legal and philosophical debates going on about how radically
AI and associated technologies are changing the boundaries of responsibility in law, medicine,
war, and the list goes on. Machines are making terrible decisions all around us every day, and
humans are rarely held responsible.”
He admits that writing the novel changed his feelings about AI
“I knew very little going in, and in some ways I feel just as ignorant now. But I’ve learned an enormous amount from readers over the last year about how these technologies are impacting our daily lives. I’m much more worried now than I was when the novel came out a
year ago.”
Holsinger sees “Culpability” as a warning.
“The novel is not about fear. It’s about understanding, about caution, about our humanity.
Culpability is not a horror novel, and it’s not dystopian or futuristic,” he said. “Again, it’s a thought experiment, aimed at getting us to think hard about these technologies and what they’re doing to our world right here, right now, in the present. I hope readers take it in that spirit while also enjoying a suspenseful story about a family going through a crisis and finding sources of
resilience in one another.”
Books are available at www.bluebirdcrozet.com/collections/bruce-holsinger or Amazon, and
can be signed at the event.
