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A Novel
by Camilla Barnes
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.
"Hilarious and heartbreaking, packed with acute and painfully funny observations about relationships and family dynamics. Barnes's dialogue is pitch-perfect, and her characters dance off the page and straight into your heart. Mum and Dad are magnificent creations, eccentric and endearing, both instantly recognizable and utterly singular." —Monica Ali, author of Love Marriage and Brick Lane
This information about The Usual Desire to Kill was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Camilla Barnes was born and brought up in England but moved to France in her twenties. She lives in Paris and works in theatre, doing every job possible there except act. She writes for the stage in both English and French. The Usual Desire to Kill is her first novel.
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