A family of five happily embarks on a trip to a sporting event as “Culpability” opens. The vibe of fun and innocence lasts for precisely four pages.

That’s when their self-driving automobile, with teenager Charlie Cassidy-Shaw in the pilot seat, smashes into a car, killing its two elderly occupants and injuring all of the Cassidy-Shaws. Charlie is so badly hurt that his lacrosse scholarship to the University of North Carolina is in jeopardy. In the aftermath, they’re trying to heal from the trauma at a Chesapeake Bay beach house, where we begin to realize that each of the five, even grade school student Izzy, has reason to believe the crash was their fault.

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