Kill For Love by Laura Picklesimer
“I didn’t think anyone was really scared at that point. The murders brought an electricity to the neighbourhood. News vans parked all across West L.A., from Bel Air down to Culver City. Reporters stopped students, residents, faculty, asking us how we were dealing, if we were scared for our changing way of life. I gave a great performance.”
Kill for Love (2023) is the satirical debut thriller from Laura Picklesimer, an award-winning author and creative writing teacher from California (read our interview with Laura here). Hailed as the ‘female American Psycho’, this is a novel that will delight fans of the genre while adding a fresh twist to an old narrative.
Tiffany Ames, a sorority sister and college student living in Los Angeles, spends her days putting in the maximum amount of effort to appear as flawless as possible. Tiffany lives the kind of influencer lifestyle many young people dream of. Thanks to her deceased business mogul father, money is no obstacle, and Tiffany is happy to splash the cash on just about anything she likes, whenever she likes: designer clothes and accessories, expensive foods (just for the Instagram shots, not to be eaten of course), mani-pedi’s, gym memberships, personal trainers and more. Tiffany is the epitome of privilege - and she knows it.
While it might appear on the surface that Tiffany has everything she could ever want, she is profoundly lacking in feeling. She feels nothing for her life or those around her – and it is eating away at her, creating a pulsing desire to find something more to fill the void. When asked what she wants in life by her roommate Emily, Tiffany thinks:
“I scrolled through my phone, past the hearts, likes, and confirmation emails from the day’s purchases. I looked through my photo library of sunsets and tiki drinks, uneaten buffet feats, hollowed stomachs, that perfect triangle of emptiness between my thighs and the sky. I stroked the soft leather of the Prada purse I had bought earlier that day and thought about the carcass it had been peeled from.
‘I want everything.’”
One fateful night, Tiffany gives in to her impulses, not entirely sure where they will lead at first, but succumbing to the gory, decadent explosion of the aftermath. In the wake of her actions, she gives in to other urges, gorging herself on fried chicken, finally feeling satiated by life and her new found passion:
“In that moment, I recognised the developing desire that had been circulating unnamed in my head for the past few weeks, that had been slowly crystalising inside me over the course of the night. My heart beat against my chest, and I felt a rush of anticipation. I was a predator. And Tristan was prey.”
The theme of hunger, consumption, and emptiness is explored throughout against the backdrop of the vacuous LA wellness landscape. There’s a giddy appeal to how Picklesimer attacks this way of life and offers Tiffany as the ultimate anti-hero – she is simultaneously a part of that world while also craving its destruction.
Tiffany’s killing spree knows no bounds, and she becomes an expert at the hunt, knowing who to pick off and how to cover her tracks. It’s only when she meets older, richer Weston that it begins to seem like Tiffany might finally move on from her serial killer impulses. But the cracks soon start to show, and when she suspects him of lying to her, she stalks out his home only to discover him watching trash TV and eating junk food in dirty casual clothes:
“I wanted to wash the scene I had just witnessed out of my head, the tableau of Weston arranged sloppily on the couch preferring to munch alone watching car shows rather than spend time with me…The real secret he was keeping from me was much worse than cheating or murder.”
Unable to accept anyone as human, flawed and not entirely devoted to her, their relationship only moves from bad to worse, culminating in a reveal that will destroy their love, and possibly Tiffany, for good.
Picklesimer does a great job of providing enough clues along the way to explain some of Tiffany’s behaviour and undesirable needs, but neither does she want us to view Tiffany as a redeemable princess who just needs saving from herself. Despite her spoilt upbringing, Tiffany is self-sufficient and bold, capable of much more than those around her anticipate, paving the way for her murderous antics.
This fast-paced read doesn’t seek to answer any of the more significant questions on privilege, power and wealth but definitely offers an engaging, darkly comic take on what happens when one woman wants to consume more than money can buy.
Elaine Chennatt is a writer, educator and psychology student currently residing in nipaluna. She has a special interest in bibliotherapy (how we use literature to make sense of our lives) and is endlessly curious about the creative philosophies of others. She lives with her husband and two bossy dachshunds on the not-so-sunny side of the river (IYKYK). Find her online at wordswithelaine.com.
