The Usual Desire to Kill

‘Hilarious and heartbreaking’ MONICA ALI

'Deeply funny and knowing' MEG WOLITZER

'Witty, moving' ANN NAPOLITANO

'Poignant, funny and brilliantly told' POSY SIMMONDS

An often hilarious, surprisingly moving portrait of a long-married couple, seen through the eyes of their wickedly observant daughter – for fans of A Man Called Ove and The Royal Tenenbaums.

Miranda’s parents live in a dilapidated house in rural France that they share with two llamas, eight ducks, five chickens, two cats, and a freezer full of food dating back to 1983.

Miranda’s father is a retired professor of philosophy who never loses an argument. Her mother likes to bring conversation back to the War, although she was born after it ended. Married for fifty years, they are uncommonly set in their ways. Miranda plays the role of translator when she visits, communicating the desires or complaints of one parent to the other and then venting her frustration to her sister and her daughter. At the end of a visit, she reports 'the usual desire to kill'.

Read by Harriet Walter, The Usual Desire to Kill is a wry, propulsive, exquisitely observed debut about a singularly eccentric family and the sibling rivalry, generational divides, and long-buried secrets that shape them. This is an extraordinary novel from a seasoned playwright with a flare for dialogue and, in the end, immense empathy for the mysterious intimacies of marriage, family, and love.

‘Hilarious and heartbreaking. Barnes’s dialogue is pitch-perfect, and her characters dance off the page and straight into your heart’ Monica Ali, author of Love Marriage

‘Camilla Barnes deftly deciphers the secret language of one family, often with deeply funny and knowing results. I loved spending time in the very specific, complicated and memorable world of this novel’ Meg Wolitzer, author of The Wife

‘I love nothing more than reading about eccentric families, and the family in The Usual Desire to Kill is just that. Miranda and her sister work to uncover the true story of their parents' marriage, only to have their brilliant, quirky mother and father deflect them at every turn. Barnes has written a witty, moving novel about characters who, even when they seem incapable of speaking honestly, are worth listening to nonetheless’ Ann Napolitano, author of Hello Beautiful

‘An account of two ageing, secretive, disputatious and thoroughly maddening parents – poignant, funny and brilliantly told through gritted teeth’ Posy Simmonds, author of Cassandra Darke