The Usual Desire to Kill: A Novel

by Camilla Barnes

A “droll, psychologically astute…unexpected…very funny” (Maureen Corrigan, NPR’s Fresh Air) and moving portrait of a long-married couple, seen through the eyes of their wickedly observant daughter.

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 decades-old food.

Miranda’s father is a retired professor of philosophy who never loses an argument. Miranda’s 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.”

This wry, propulsive story about an eccentric yet endearing family and the sibling rivalry, generational divides, and long-buried secrets that shape them, is a glorious debut novel from a seasoned playwright with immense empathy and a flair for dialogue.

Genres: Fiction, Audiobook, Literary Fiction, Humor, Family, Contemporary, France

255 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 1, 2025

Reviews

[emma · Rating 3 out of 5]

i know it well.

this is a very funny book with no plot or character development. it is mostly about the relationship between what seems to be any set of parents — how you as their child are somehow translating one to the other, even though they have known each other since before you existed.

it captures that well, in all of its irritation and frustration and occasional humor if you can look outside of yourself.

it's not really a book, being without a story, but it's still somehow a mostly good time.

bottom line: i don't exactly recommend it, but i'm kinda impressed?

(review to come / thanks to the publisher for the copy)

[Christy fictional_traits · Rating 4 out of 5]

'Your parents are your parents, you don't question what you have for dinner, or where you live, or how they talk to you, that's just the way things are. It's when you're older that you start to think, hey, that was a bit odd, wasn't it'?

Reading 'The Usual Desire to Kill' is like being plonked in a reality TV show that follows an eccentric, multi-generational family. Mostly viewed from the perspective of daughter Miranda, the plot centres around her parents, who've been married for over 50 years and have felt every one of them. They constantly pick and needle at each other, all the while still carrying on with their unwavering routines, 'You know what it's like, the usual desire to kill...'. Occasionally we hear from Miranda's sister, Charlotte, through letters, and Miranda's daughter, Alice too. Altogether their voices highlight the menagerie of their family dynamics, 'I often found myself communicating the desires or complaints of one to the other'. But as critical as Miranda and her sister are of their parents, they are not immune to having their own foibles.

'The Usual Desire to Kill' is a unique read and one that took me time to work into. It made me feel a range of emotions, from sadness to hilarity, as well as a sense of a loss of living the life you desire - caught up in what you 'ought' to do. No matter what your out take of this book is, it'll definitely give you some points to ponder.

'The moral of the story was: Don't choose what you desire, choose what you need (or maybe what you think you ought to have...)'.

[kimberly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Told mostly from the perspective of one meticulously inquisitive daughter, The Usual Desire To Kill tells the tale of one eccentric family that is set in their ways.

Reading this story was like taking a peek in to my own life when I visit my parents but there is no way that I could have written it with the same wit, humor, and precision that Barnes did. I can see myself playing the same role that Miranda plays—often times acting as the translator between parents who lack the communication skills required to make a marriage work but have some how still managed to do just that after 40+ years.

“After more than fifty years of marriage, they were set in their ways… It was a game of stubbornness versus pedantry and it was pointless trying to intervene.”

With irresistible prose, playful dialogue, and compelling character relations, Barnes explores many facets of family life: the intricacies of marriage, parent-child relationships, sisterhood, generational gaps, and what it looks like to care for those we love. There is nary a plot so, seemingly, there is little that is actually occurring on page but there is something really special about the stark reality of it all. I could absolutely see this novel being adapted in to a thought-provoking, comedic play.

“It has to be said, they may be barking mad, but I always come home with some good anecdotes.”

Thank you Scribner for the early copy in exchange for an honest review! Available Apr. 1 2025. *Quotes are pulled from an advanced reader copy and are subject to change prior to publication*

[Kate O'Shea · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

I really enjoyed this book. It made me laugh and there's also a fair amount of sadness in it. It is perfectly balanced.

The story is mainly told by the youngest daughter, Miranda, a stage actress but other narrators wander in and out in the form of letters from the unnamed mother to her sister, Kitty, emails between sisters Miranda and Charlotte plus the odd interjection by Miranda's daughter, Alice.

The parents live on a "not quite" smallholding in Poitiers, France; Miranda living and working in Paris visits often. Probably the funniest parts are the everyday conversations had between Miranda and her parents, much of which she faithfully repeats to Charlotte in the form of exasperated emails.

There are several sub-plots running through the book that deal with the marriage of Miranda's parents, a brother called James and The Incident - something that happened many years before between her father and a woman named Barbara which both Charlotte and Miranda have been trying to get to the bottom of since they were children.

All of the things that happen in the book are perfectly ordinary and could happen to any of us - especially the often fractious relations between parents/children/siblings. But Camilla Barnes has done a wonderful job of making everything extremely entertaining.

I enjoyed reading this novel and I'd happily recommend it to anyone who likes a bit of strange family drama.

If you're wondering - the llamas on the cover play a small part and all the mysteries are solved. A clever book and well-written. Camilla Barnes is an author I've not come across previously. I hope she writes more novels.

Thankyou to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster for the advance review copy. Most enjoyable.

[Stephen the Bookworm · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Usual Desire to Kill is a curious read - a mixture of melancholy and aging and comedic conversations that seem abstract to the outsider but make sense within families.

This is the story of Miranda and Charlotte whose parents having left the world of academia in Oxford and moved to rural France now live in a semi chaotic state with llamas and a continual world of bickering

This is a family that is as dysfunctional as many and the communications between them - emails between the sisters and diary/ letters their mother wrote in the 1960s as she attempted to enter the male bastion land of Oxford weave within the book

The relationship between the parents is constant disagreement - hence the title.

Camilla Barnes experience as a playwright and actress is evident as this novel could easily translate to the stage . It is one of those books that not much happens but is full of life ( albeit filled with a sense of loss and despair and familiar conversations many siblings may hear their parents having and subsequently the discussions afterwards)

Hard to classify - dark humoured and leaves a sense of sadness as we all age and will recognise something in some of the characters.

[Roxanne Thorne · Rating 2 out of 5]

I can't give this a full review because I didn't finish it.
I got just over 100 pages in and just had to give up as it was a chore to continue reading.
The way the story is told is a mix of letters, first person perspective, emails and play script which makes it hard to get into the flow of the story which was dull, uninspiring and seemingly had no direction.
The characters had very little development and I found myself getting increasingly annoyed with them, the mother character especially.
I can see why some people would find this an interesting read but it really isn't for me.

[Brady Billiot · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book about an interesting little family. I’d recommend if you like fleabag and maybe the structure of Station Eleven

[Maureen Grigsby · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this novel. The title makes it seem like it is a mystery, but the title refers to feeling homicidal after spending a few days with your aging (and dotty) parents. The two sisters send emails back and forth to each of other regarding the parental behavior. This is Barnes’ first novel and she shows superb talent! I would definitely read anything she writes and hope that we don’t have to wait too long for another treasure from her. Also, thank you to Simon and Shuster for this early copy of this novel.

[Ellery Adams · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

I thought this family-driven novel was very well-written. So many people will be able to relate to the frustration of visiting aging parents who cannot seem to have a single open, honest conversation.

Miranda and Charlotte, the two sisters, seem fairly well-adjusted after growing up with two parents who were never in love and have spent their lives chipping away at each other. Their history unfolds slowly, and an occasional bomb is dropped that isn't really explored (is the dad autistic, for example). In the end, I got the sense that the parents were just too British to explore their feelings or say what they really meant, and left me feeling a little unsatisfied.

[jocelyn • coolgalreading · Rating 2 out of 5]

i am having the most bland reading month EVER and this isn't helping

[amie · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Don’t you think, by the time you are past fifty, you should be able to have a normal conversation with your parents?”

[Mike Finn · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘The Usual DesireTo Kill’ was one of the best books I’ve read so far this year. I'm recommending it to anyone who will listen.

Despite what the title might suggest, this isn’t a thriller. It’s a beautifully crafted mainstream novel that takes an honest and empathetic look at the relationship between a couple in their seventies who have been married for more than fifty years and the difficulties their adult children have in comprehending and having grown-up conversations with their parents. 

Camilla Barnes delivered startlingly accurate dialogue and did interesting things with form that enhanced rather than distracted me from the story. 

Like life itself, this book is funny in parts, sad in parts and much more complicated than it first appears to be.

The humour launches the book. The sadness is a shadow the book slides slowly into.

The book starts as letters from the younger daughter to the older daughter, in which she shares stories of the strange but unsurprising activities of their parents, activities which, by the end of a weekend, leave her with 'the usual desire to kill'. Much of the humour comes from the daughter's I'd-like-to-be-incredulous-but-we've-both-seen-this-too-often-to-be-surprised tone and from the honestly-they-said-this-out-loud snipets of conversation that she shares.

The tone of the story shifts when we roll back in time and get letters from the mother to her sister, describing her arrival for her first term at Oxford. The difference between the world view of the young woman writing about her hopes and disappointments and the old woman verbally fighint her corner and imposing her will on her family immediately raises the question: "Whatever happened to her?" 

As the story progressed with letters between the two daughters, punctuated by letters between the mother and her sister, my perception of all of the characters shifted. I was reminded that nobody is just who they are today. We are all also still who we once were and who we had hoped to become. 

The sadness comes not just from the events that turned the hopeful young woman into an embattled old woman but from seeing how little the daughters understand their parents' history and how blind the parents are to the impact they've had on the children they've raised.

What I liked most about the book is that there are no good guys or bad guys in it, just people, flawed and sometimes flailing, trying to live with the choices they've made. All of the people feel real. The purpose of the book is to understand them, not judge them.

Harriet Walters’ narration was the icing on the cake. Click on the YouTube link to hear a sample. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oITwb...

[Anna Catherine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Calling the police because it would appear that Camilla Barnes (and typewriter) has been living in my parents’ walls

[jrendocrine at least reading is good · Rating 3 out of 5]

3-1/2
Clever writing about how exasperating aging parents can be, especially those of Miranda, the main narrator. Visiting them in their home in rural France, Miranda is unerringly kind to her parents, which is a relief - and surprise - but then again, they are quite kind to her in return. But the parents - oh my, what a cup of bitterness! Barnes delivers expert dialogue representing a couple who, though joined at the hip (!) have never fulfilled any of each other's emotional needs. Why they have stayed together for 50 years is not obvious: rather, Barnes' focus is on how to take a leisurely and good third act, and make it purgatory in the south of France.

How the very cantankerous and controlling mother has managed to end up with two devoted daughters (really not at all like Lear's two older daughters, Shakespeare a constant reference throughout), is a puzzle.

I grew tired of the family dynamics by 2/3, but the sparkling language - and wit - does keep one going. The author is a playwright (this is her first book) - perhaps this all might be better as theater.

[Annie Tate Cockrum · Rating 3 out of 5]

A story about a very eccentric and very funny English family living on a farm in the south of France. The dialogue is really the shining star in this book - very quippy and fast paced. Camilla Barnes is a playwright and that is no surprise based on the incredible dialogue. The family consists of two parents, their two daughters in their 50s and one young adult granddaughter. All of the dynamics at play are quite rich and interesting. I’m thankful to have read an advanced copy and look forward to the pub date on 4/1/25.

[Trisha · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a touching story of a family. Two sisters trying to care for aging parents. There are some silly moments that made me laugh but, for the most part, it just made me a bit sad.

This family is headstrong and quiet. They don't talk about the big things and secrets remain just that. There is also generational trauma with wild food saving and a crazy freezer with meat from the 1980's! Most of the story is told through letters - from one sister to another - as they try to compare what each of them knows (because the parents don't tell them both the same information) and trying to work together to get them the care and attention they need.

But the other part of the story are letters to Kitty. They are filled with dreams of love and family and how things will all turn out. They tie together in the end and also made me a bit sad. And I don't blame her for hating Barbara and for the girls being curious. I do love what we found out in the end, though.

[Gila Gila]

I'm not properly reviewing this novel because whilst I admired the writing, I'm simply not the reader for it. Odd to feel that way about a book that is darkly witty, dexterous with language and unquestionably British, all descriptives that could be applied to much of the family I grew up in, and, for that matter, many of the novels I've loved; but for whatever reason, there wasn't one character here I could engage with. The wordplay, the long held in emotions, the inescapability of the family were all right there on the page, but still I came up empty. Seems likely that's as much about me as anything else, so that's that (if only I could tell this to my late mum, all I'd have to do would be to quote Daisy Ashford - "...and so we drawer a vail.." - well, it was something like that).

[Jen | A Tipsy Bookworm · Rating 2 out of 5]

So listen — I don’t really know what I just read, but I do know that it gave me mild emotional whiplash and flashbacks to every single holiday dinner with my family.

The plot (if we’re calling it that) follows Miranda, a tired actress with no peace, who visits her elderly parents at their crumbly countryside estate in France. Sounds cute, right? NOPE. It’s like if a dusty British sitcom met a French farm full of regret and freezer-burned trauma. There are llamas. There’s a freezer full of frozen mystery meat. There’s passive aggression so thick you could butter it and serve it with scones.

Her dad’s a retired philosopher who speaks only in annoying tangents and impossible logic loops. Her mom’s a guilt-trip Jedi who still talks about “the war” like she fought in it personally (spoiler: she didn’t). Miranda basically shows up, referees their marital cage match, tries not to scream, and then emails her sister with the classic sign-off: “the usual desire to kill.” Honestly, relatable.

The book flips back and forth between Miranda’s visits, her emails, and a pile of her mom’s old letters — which, if I’m being honest, just made things more confusing. I spent most of the time trying to figure out who was talking, what decade we were in, and whether this whole thing was secretly a fever dream.

Here’s the thing: it’s well-written in a look-how-clever-I-am kind of way, but half the time I felt like I was trapped in a never-ending dinner party where everyone’s speaking in riddles and no one will pass the wine. That said, there were moments that genuinely made me snort-laugh, especially if you’ve ever tried to help your boomer parents with literally anything.

Would I recommend it? If you like literary chaos, unresolved emotional baggage, and arguing about hip replacements, sure. If you’re looking for a coherent plot or inner peace, maybe… read literally anything else.

Still, despite the confusion and frustration, it felt weirdly like home. So maybe that’s the point? Families are messy, aging is wild, and sometimes, love looks a whole lot like yelling about lawn care and hoarding frozen peas from 1987.

[Sharah McConville · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Usual Desire to Kill is a quirky and entertaining story about two adult children dealing with their aging parents, in France. Parts of the book are told in letters, plays and emails. Despite the family being frustrating and dysfunctional, I actually started to feel for them by the end of the book. Thank you to Simon & Schuster for my paperback copy of this book.

[Deborah · Rating 3 out of 5]

How to describe the long-married British couple who form the centrepiece of this droll novel? They’ve been married for 50 years, have retired to a dilapidated house in the French countryside, drive each other crazy, but not nearly as much as they do their adult daughter, who thought she had been escaping her family when she fled to Paris many years back, but whose parents promptly sold up and followed her to France. Now she must drop in on them with increasing regularity to check on their welfare, as their lives decay into shambolic squalor. They and their menagerie, including a pair of llamas, are driving their long-suffering daughter mad, as she makes reports to her sister (who wisely keeps her distance), and her own adult daughter.

[Matt Bender · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Usual Desire to Kill is charming. It’s largely about the ways that middle age children relate to their parents. Miranda is constantly annoyed by her parents, who are very amusing, and her annoyance is of course an expression of her interest in them, which is a profound indication of her love.

The novel also deals with themes of how companionate couples change and the ways someone maintains an individual personality (including private thoughts, schemes, and dark traits) despite decades of time with each other and their kids. Toward the end, the novel starts to explore how death’s immanence changes people in philosophical ways, particularly how it changes the parent-child dynamic.

The novel is relatable, but it explore common themes—it’s the clever characters and dialogue that makes it enjoyable.

[Ruby · Rating 3 out of 5]

A quirky story about a married couple who is being observed by their daughter and granddaughter in their dynamic. Way too close to home for me tbh haha.

[Marlena Arjo · Rating 5 out of 5]

SO GOOD! I'm not joking, SO FUCKING GOOD!

[Ashley · Rating 4 out of 5]

No matter how well we think we know someone the truth is: we don't.

There's a strange family dynamic at play here - two adult sisters, their parents, and their own children. The parents followed one daughter, our main perspective Miranda, when she moved to France and bought a dilapidated house with a lot of land and various animals. The elder sister, Charlotte, stayed in England and went on with her life. The parents don't seem to actually like each other but there isn't open animosity either. Their life in France is a strange, semi-functional absurdity.

Throughout the course of the novel we see the adult relationship between Miranda and Charlotte, their concerns for their parents and themselves, Miranda's daughter's close relationship with her grandfather, and how Miranda and Charlotte navigate their parents aging. We also get quiet revelations about their parents relationship before them with excerpts of letters, and by the end find out that there is a secret that is the backbone to the present that neither sister knows.

It's a mix of silly and sad, and full of love. A quick and thoughtful read.

[Leslie · Rating 4 out of 5]

What starts as a funny look at kids and parents across generational divides turns into something more nuanced about what gets said within families, what remains hidden and the efforts we make to keep each other comfortable.

Two daughters try to manage the decline of their stubborn, aging parents in their decaying farmhouse in France. They conspire and complain but ultimately show up and support, with much frustration. The mother is particularly domineering. In flashbacks, we get more of her story. A granddaughter rounds out the points of view and gives us a helpful reminder that we often can't see clearly when we are too close to something.

These characters felt so real. I know them. The three generations are navigating a shifting moment in their natural order. People are misunderstood, accommodated, petty, trying, exhausted, withholding.

Yes, this is a privileged lot. But their desire to be seen and understood, loved by those around them, feels universal. And it passed the "six-laugh test" for me.

[Abi R · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well, the book did in fact give me the usual desire to kill, so I suppose it's done its job.

Just not for me. It was all characters and no plot, which might've been alright had I not disliked every single character. The book as a whole felt melancholy and dreary, and it was pretty disappointing to spend more of my life suffering through more of that. I like my books to go somewhere, to give me some sort of satisfaction. This book did neither.

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sweet and quirky. I love dysfunctional families with a red, beating heart underneath all that pain.

[Sam Cheng · Rating 3 out of 5]

Miranda, a middle-aged woman who works as a playwright in London, visits her aging parents in the French countryside. The story is told from three perspectives: Miranda, her mother through the form of letters from her uni years, and Alice, Miranda’s daughter. The family drama is unremarkably normal in the most pleasant way. Much of the story takes place around the home, giving a sitcom effect. My favorite character is Peter, the dad, who opines, “Aristotle is always right.” I smiled at this; I wish I had a granddad who taught me philosophy and logic.

[Susan Tunis · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars. An auspicious debut!

[BAM · Rating 4 out of 5]

I greatly enjoyed this book.