How to Kill Your Family

Both Grace and her half-brother Harry are quite proud, though for different reasons. While Harry sees himself as a product of his cultured upbringing, for which he credits his mother, Grace sees herself as a solitary antihero who is too intelligent and strong-willed to tolerate the lesser people all around her—including her mother, on whose behalf she seeks revenge. Grace’s narrative begins with her certainty that “readers would lap […] up” her story if published, and she insists the public would “pore over it,” making it a “bestseller” that would compel “the masses [to] rush to the shops to read all about the “attractive and tragic young woman” who committed such terrible crimes (3). Harry’s pride is evident in his emails to Grace, as he admits, “I’m pretty proud” (327), before smugly telling her, “you never would have managed [Simon’s murder, though] you gave it a good old go with the rest of them […]. But Simon […] would’ve needed more than vague plans and luck. It didn’t really look to me like you were working with anything else” (351). Harry claims he wants to lessen the blow of her “failure” by letting her know that he finished what she couldn’t, but he also seems to want her acknowledgment of his victory, since he can have no one else’s. However, both Grace and Harry make miscalculations that arise from their pride, especially relating to Kelly. Grace’s proud underestimation of her cellmate is demonstrated by the end of the narrative, and Harry’s is hinted at in the postscript.

Grace’s underestimation of Kelly gives Harry the leverage to blackmail her. She believes Kelly is an “undeniable moron,” and so never suspects her cellmate of being intelligent enough to outsmart her. Though Grace admits to “looking through Kelly’s diary since [she] landed in this prison,” she has too much pride to suspect that Kelly could find her own or that Kelly might realize that Grace snoops and so choose to omit certain events from her writing—like meeting with Harry (54). If Kelly believed her diary was private, she would likely have written about these meetings, unintentionally alerting Grace to Harry’s existence and intentions. Kelly is much savvier than Grace gives her credit for, in part because Grace is too proud to think that someone like Kelly could possibly deceive her. Though Grace admits that “Everyone here tries to get hold of everyone else’s possessions, tries to gain their secrets as leverage” (88), she thinks it can never happen to her (88). Even when confronted by Kelly’s interest in her and the “questions that make it obvious that [Kelly] knows more than she should” (194), Grace continues to think of her cellmate as an “empty vessel.” Grace’s pride persuades her that someone as intelligent and ambitious as she is could never be outwitted by a woman who “blithely ignor[es] her repeated incarcerations” and continues to commit the same crime again and again (194). This proud miscalculation opens the door for Kelly to hand Harry evidence of Grace’s crimes.

Though far less of the narrative is attributed to Harry, he too underestimates Kelly, even as he points out that Grace has made the same mistake. His final line conveys his arrogance, as he says he paid Kelly off and is “confident she’ll leave [Grace] well alone” (354). His confidence is immediately undermined by the novel’s postscript, in which Kelly contacts Grace, hinting multiple times at the power she has over her former cellmate. Further, Harry admits that Kelly thought of retaining hard copies of some pages of Grace’s notebook and even advised him about software that would protect his emails. A seasoned blackmailer, Kelly likely kept pictures of Grace’s notebook for herself (just as she retains Grace’s wooden spoon) and perhaps some evidence, too, of Harry’s exploits. Harry’s own pride prevents him from realizing that Kelly is now in a position to blackmail both him and Grace.