The Usual Desire to Kill

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

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.”

A wry, propulsive, exquisitely observed story of a singularly eccentric family and the sibling rivalry, generational divides, and long-buried secrets that shape them. This is an extraordinary debut novel from a seasoned playwright with a flare for dialogue and, in the end, immense empathy.