The Usual Desire To Kill by Camilla Barnes

The Usual Desire to Kill by Camilla Barnes

256 pages

Published April 2026 by Scribner

Publisher’s Summary: 

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.

My Thoughts:

I recently went to pick up library holds that had come available and was surprised to find this title among my books. I had no recollection of requesting it, no idea who might have recommended it, and no idea why I would have requested a book about killing. I was only a few pages into the book when I became even more confused. This certainly didn’t feel like a book that was headed down the path of becoming a murder mystery. So, I did something I almost never do – I looked at the front flap to get the book description. And then I proceeded to race through this book. 

This is the story of how two people who should never have been together maneuver thru a long marriage and the effects that has on their children. Barnes explores marriage, sibling rivalry, truths behind shifting memories, and family secrets as well as examining the decisions people make in life, the long-term effects of those decisions, and how well one truly knows the people they love. 

One reviewer called it "tragicomic" and I think that's the perfect description. Barnes' writing is often witty and I found myself chucking frequently. But there is a sadness throughout that builds throughout the book. Miranda's father suffers the aftereffects of WWII and they both suffer the aftereffects of depression that followed it in England. That poverty has turned both parents into hoarders of a sort, which is both sad but also humorous in Barnes' hands. But life has hardened them as well. Which makes visiting them hard on Miranda, who writes to her sister, after one visit, that she left with "the usual desire to kill." 

I believe, in retrospect, that this book came to my attention via The New York Times Book Review and that I immediately requested it from my library just to avoid having to take the time to record it into my TBR list. I must say, it’s not a half bad way to get yourself to read something you might otherwise have put off. That would have been a terrible shame in the case of The Usual Desire To Kill.