The Usual Desire to Kill, by Camilla Barnes

Two daughters must deal with their eccentric, aging parents.

Dutiful daughter Miranda has her patience stretched trying to keep an eye on her aging, rather eccentric parents. They moved to rural France years ago and now live on a run down mini farm. The house is in a terrible state and they live on dodgy food from the freezer. Her sister Charlotte, with whom Miranda has a rocky relationship, endeavours to help out. Even so, Miranda confesses to the “usual desire to kill” both her mother and father. 

The Usual Desire to Kill is Camilla Barnes’s debut novel (she is the niece of famed British writer Julian Barnes.) What she presents here is a totally original take on dealing with elderly parents (the novel mostly circles around the mother’s pending hip replacement operation.) Barnes opts for an innovative structure, with the novel written in the first person, interspersed with email correspondence and an earlier exchange of letters between the mother and her mystery friend, Kitty. The great joy of the book is Barnes’s pitch perfect dialogue between the idiosyncratic parents, which many a reader will recognise. A life affirming novel written with warmth and love, despite the protagonist’s parricidal fantasies.

The Usual Desire to Kill, by Camilla Barnes. Published by Scribner. $35

July 2025