How To Kill Your Family by Bella Mackie review

By Alistair Hendrie

In 2018, Bella Mackie made a name for herself with her debut book, Jog On: How Running Saved My Life. Part-memoir, part-ode to the benefits of running, Mackie described how pounding the streets helped her overcome feelings of anxiety and an attachment to her sofa. She earned rave reviews. She led The Sunday Times bestseller list. To top it off, she wrote with wit and honesty. Now, though, she turns the tables with her first novel. 

How To Kill Your Family tells the story of a young woman who aims to kill off her father’s side of the family, seeking revenge against her father who left her now-deceased mother before she was born. It’s a world away from Jog On. It’s full of ink-black humour, resounding cynicism, and none of the triumphant vibes of Mackie’s first effort. Additionally, none of the characters are particularly likeable.

Our anti-hero and serial killer-in chief is Grace Bernard, who writes from prison about her killings after she was arrested for a murder which she in fact didn’t commit. Grace rails in particular against her estranged multi-millionaire father, Simon Artemis, who personifies the themes of misogyny and white male privilege which run through the book. Grace describes Simon’s “horrible flashy clothes” and smarm, as well as stating that she realised that women were pushed below men in social hierarchy “before she could talk.” 

It’s difficult to tell whether or not we’re meant to root for Grace. She shuns those who try to help her, holds little direction in her personal life and carries herself with unencumbered arrogance. Moreover, she seems to have given up on life and describes each of the following as boring: teenagers, funerals, Freud, Tripadvisor, small talk, and many, many more. Mackie labours the point by harping on about Grace’s anhedonia. It becomes a little one-paced. 

Grace finds solace in feminist literature, and in among the references to the #MeToo movement, she describes Donald Trump as an “orange moron.” How, Grace asks, did Hilary Clinton refrain from killing Trump during the 2017 election? After all, Grace believes murdering people “relaxes one far more than plain old nostril breathing.” 

Of course, one thing the main character does enjoy is getting her own back on her family. She wants nothing to do with the wealth, luxuries and business success which the Artemises enjoy. “I am strengthened by what I do,” she says. “I was eliminating a toxic group of people from society. A family who’d done nothing but take what they could get for themselves, and treat other people with disdain.” 

Two of the murders stand out. Grace hangs her naked uncle in a sex club, as all along she adopts new identities and keeps a low profile. Anxiety pulses off the page as Grace coaxes uncle Lee into a dingy, darkened room with chains hanging from the ceiling. Even Gaspar Noé would be proud of that level of smut. Earlier, Grace drugs her half-brother Andrew with frog serum. By duping men with the promise of sex and drugs, she redresses the gender balance one Artemis at a time. 

Despite the bloodlust and gender battles, there’s plenty of comedy. Grace’s chavvy cellmate Kelly is all “babe” and “darlin’” and harbours dreams of undergoing breast enhancements upon her release. One scene depicts her “wheezing” on the toilet after sampling the prison’s chilli con carne for the umpteenth day in a row. Also, when working in marketing at Artemis Holdings, Grace riffs on the “obese web designer” who “ate instant soup with the same plastic spoon every day for a year.” 

While How To Kill Your Family is an entertaining read, the plot is a little thin. Early on, it’s obvious that the book will be an elementary series of murders, and we experience very little jeopardy until the last act. At this point, another one of Simon’s estranged children enters the mayhem and flips the script on Grace. Mackie announced that she will release another chapter of the book in April, so it will be intriguing to see how Grace, normally so clinical, tackles this new curveball. 

High on intrigue yet flimsy on narrative, another hiccup is Grace’s time in prison. What use does it hold for the story, if for anything other than to serve the book’s non-linear structure? Grace’s acquittal and release is glossed over as a non-event. Essentially, someone finds CCTV footage and that’s that. Furthermore, Grace is full of contradictions. She “didn’t care for Lee” yet describes murdering him as “painstaking.” 

Mackie’s first foray into fiction is a bit of a mess, sometimes lacking an anchor to tie everything together. Still, nothing is straight-forward in Grace’s world. Her life is entangled and her relationships are wobbly. Like many others in the book, there are layers to her character and she’s authentic and vulnerable. Thankfully for Mackie, the flawed psyches and moral dilemmas she presents stay in the memory longer than a series of oversights in the plot.