The Kind Worth Killing: A Novel

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes references to the source text’s description of sexual assault and molestation of a minor.

Swanson explores the gray areas surrounding morality and the justification of murder through Lily’s perspective. While Lily is a protagonist and her behavior is initially justified in a narrative sense, Swanson ultimately debunks Lily’s belief system by the end of the novel. This complicates her sense of morality and suggests the reader should question the rigidity of black and white thinking. Thus, the foundation of the novel is turned on its head, and any suspended disbelief surrounding the murder of characters in Swanson’s novel is ultimately stripped away, highlighting the horror and reality of murder.  

Lily creates her own system of morality in the novel, and this is revealed to have been derived from her trauma and life experience. Using flashbacks, Swanson reveals the cause for Lily’s justification of murder and how this belief system fuels the greater narrative structure of the novel. Lily sees the world differently than everyone around her because of the abuse she suffered from Chet. The direct correlation between Lily’s abuse and her decision to murder Chet reveals an underlying trauma in Lily’s psyche.