Whitcoulls Recommends: Culpability and Mother Mary Comes to Me

Culpability by Bruce Holsinger. When a self driving car crashes, a family’s lives are thrown into chaos. In the aftermath, questions are raised about responsibility for the accident and where the ethical line between human culpability and the technology is drawn. The people in this family are all keeping secrets from one another, and as these are thrown into the spotlight this book just gets more and more compelling. I couldn’t put it down.

Mother Mary Comes to Me by Arundhati Roy. She won the Booker Prize in 1997 with The God of Small Things which was fiction – this new one is a memoir, about her life, and specifically about her relationship with her mother who was a singular, difficult woman who is referred to throughout the book as Mrs Roy. They had a challenging relationship – Arundhati said her mother was her shelter and her storm – and there are loads of fascinating and entertaining stories and anecdotes in the book. It’s a terrific memoir.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News Talks AB.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Good morning, Joan, Hello, what have you got for us today?

Speaker 3 (00:16):
I've got a book by a guy I'd never heard of,
but I loved it. It's called Culpability and his name
is Bruce Holsinger, and it's fascinating and very clever. It's fiction,
but essentially it's about artificial intelligence and how it's increasingly
all around us, and it raises some really interesting and
complex questions. So it starts with a family of five

(00:37):
on a road trip in a self driving minivan and
the seventeen year old boy, Charlie is at the wheel
as the lookout. He doesn't have a driver's license. But
that's so back okay, because AI's and control, and his
dad's working on a laptop in the passenger seat next
to him, and mum and the two daughters are in
the back. And Mum is acknowledged pretty much as a genius.
She was the recipient of a MacArthur Genius Award for

(00:59):
her work in artificial intelligence, so she's recognized around the world.
And their vehicle slams head on into an oncoming car
in which two people die, and the question then becomes
where does the culpability lie? So to try and recover,
they rent a house in Chesapeake Bay where they go
and they're all licking their wounds. But you realize as

(01:19):
you read on that each of them has got a secret,
and each of them has a reason to believe that
they were responsible for the crash. I will say I
wasn't sure that I ever wanted to read a book
about Ai, but it's a big plart of this plot
in some really fascinating ways. One of the kids is
having a relationship with a chatbot. A search and rescue
is done by drones. Everybody's on their phones all the time,

(01:42):
and their neighbor at the bay has installed very high
security around their estate. And when the family are invited
into that world, everything changes. I could not put this start.

Speaker 2 (01:52):
Okay, cool contemporary themes down, Yeah yeah, nice. Now tell
me about Mother. Mary comes to Me by Arundhati Roy.
Some listeners may recall that in nineteen ninety seven she
won the Book a Prize with her book The God
of Small Things.

Speaker 3 (02:06):
This is her memoir which is extraordinary. It revolves around
her mother, whom she describes as both her shelter and
her storm. Her mother Mary was a singular force of nature.
She divorced her husband when that wasn't a thing to do.
She brought up the kids on her own. But she
was volatile and difficult, emotionally abusive, and Aaron daughty Roy

(02:27):
refers to her throughout this book as missus Roy, so
there's a real emotional disconnect between them. She was, however,
missus Roy, hugely successful in her own right. She started
a school which was nationally recognized. But when she was eighteen,
Aaron Dahty left home, moved to Delli to get away
from her mum. And this is the story full of
fascinating anecdotes and character portrayals about what her life has

(02:49):
been like since and her surprise at the overwhelming grief
she felt when her mother died. And this is one
of those books that you read and you realize that family,
lives and love are terribly complex things, and she writes
about it so beautifully.

Speaker 2 (03:04):
That's Aaron Darty Roy the book, as Mother Mary Comes
to Me. The first book we spoke about was by
Bruce Holsinger. It's called Culpability. And we must remind people
that the kids The new Kid's Top fifty list is
out at Wick Calls, and I thought it was really interesting.
The research Joan shows that eighty four percent of Kiwi
eight year olds enjoy reading for pleasure. Isn't that wonderful news?

Speaker 3 (03:27):
It is wonderful news. Yes, yeah, reading for pleasure and
being read to, which is equally important for that age group.

Speaker 2 (03:34):
And look this if you're a parent. I used to
read all the time my kids. They used toill love
me reading to them. But you did get to the
point where I'd buy a book if I thought it
was great, because I'm like, hang on, I have to
read this as well, Like there's got to be some
pleasure for the parent as well.

Speaker 3 (03:47):
I used to check how many words were in the
book and whether it was trying to take too long.

Speaker 2 (03:51):
Because I think if the parent find some pleasure in it,
then you're going to be happy to read it a
thousand games and things. But I do say that there
are some classic I still love reading to my kids,
and I'm pretty sure I could recite now. Of course,
Hearry McClary from Donaldson's Dairy, The Gruffalo's Still There, The
Very Hungry Catpullart and the Little Yellow Digger that was
big when my kids were little. I'm thrilled to see

(04:12):
that and it's still still got a life. You'll be
able to find the new Kids Top fifty list online
or you can pop into a Whig call stop. Thanks
so much, John, Thank you for.

Speaker 1 (04:24):
More from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin. Listen live
to News Talks it B from nine am Sunday, or
follow the podcast on iHeartRadio