Podcast
Fresh Air
Corrigan described Barnes's debut novel as a droll, psychologically sharp work that mixes humor with family dysfunction, noting its unusual language and vivid, often grotesque, details.
The humor of Britishborn novelist Camilla Barnes is more in the droll, psychologically astute tradition of a Barbara Pym novel. Barnes' debut is called The Usual Desire to Kill. It's what two sisters...
— Episode: Noah Wyle Is At Home In 'The Pitt'
Episode: Noah Wyle Is At Home In 'The Pitt'
Corrigan described Barnes's debut novel as a droll, psychologically sharp work that mixes humor with family dysfunction, noting its unusual language and vivid, often grotesque, details.
The humor of Britishborn novelist Camilla Barnes is more in the droll, psychologically astute tradition of a Barbara Pym novel. Barnes' debut is called The Usual Desire to Kill. It's what two sisters here, Charlotte and Miranda, acknowledge that that's what they feel whenever they visit their eccentric, exhausting, retired parents at their tumbledown farmhouse in rural France.
The constant pleasure of reading the usual desire to kill is Barnes' unexpected language. A bed with a hard mattress is likened to sleeping on old toast. Dried eggs, which the father recalls eating during World WarII, are said to have tasted a bit like dandruff.