Read: November 27 2023

Chilling from the start. Darkness and creeping horror through to the blunted end.

From the first few pages, the first line, even the first sentence of this book, chills flicker down your spine.

A further foray into the psychological thriller genre from Leïla Slimani, this novel was written in native French, though I read the English translation. It had me on edge from the beginning. Curled up on the couch on a wintry day, this kind of opening chapter shock tactic shook me wide awake to what was coming. As a literary tool, it is highly effective. Sit up, eyes wide, you’re in for it here.

We start at the scene of an absolute tragedy, Slimani writes a sublime evocation of one of life’s true horrors, her grasp of human reaction is sharply refined and is terrifying. Pain that you would hope to never face, never even imagine and, writing as an expectant father, perhaps it portends even greater dread on a personal level. Within a few pages we know what has happened and where this novel is heading. It is discomforting and darkly sinister. Slimani dares you to read on.

This is a novel-in-reverse, urging you to keep the keenest of eyes on the main protagonists. There are a mere handful of characters in this book. All are acutely flawed as human beings, which applies to the children too – a comment on the human condition, which Slimani handles superbly well.

Set in Paris, in the sixth arrondisement, to which Slimani repeatedly refers through the book, as the characters find themselves around and about in different areas of Paris. Naturally, class and status are part of the social commentary here. We have the parents: Myriam, adapting to life as a mother, struggling with the shift from highly-functioning Law graduate to barely functioning mother-of-two. And her partner: Paul, the eternal boyhood in him clear, and his adolescent ambitions flowing through, his priority is not his children, but music production and pursuit of the impossible creative dream. Then, their children: Mila, a precocious, demanding and mischievous toddler of about three who craves attention, which we know won’t come from her mentally absent, drained and strung-out mother. And Adam: baby when we first meet him, the wished-for answer to all the family’s struggles, but quite simply, a baby. A baby requiring love, devotion, time and attention that his parents ache to provide to their working lives, and leave little margin for he and his sister.

Enter the Nanny. The Perfect Nanny, as the US name of this novel declares. After meeting a few alternatives whom are quickly ruled out, with xenophobic undertones on the part of the choosers, the parents find Louise: a forty-something widow with an exemplary-record, a highly recommended Mary Poppins-esque super-nanny. She is the answer to their prayers, to their clear desire to reclaim their lives from drudging parenthood and all it’s draining domestic anarchy. Louise brings order, discipline and most important to Myriam and Paul, brings them space to return to their lives before children.

We already know that this does not end well. And we therefore easily note the failings in the methods that Myriam employs to find the carer for her children. She overlooks reasonable candidates, and gives in to her prejudices, she swerves the reliable childcare agency, designed to vet these individuals, owing to the uneasy feeling she gets from meeting the agency manager. But, we also see her decisions as perfectly natural, as reasonable to allow in a world where the mother is expected to sacrifice her sense of self to her new hood. It speaks to the challenges of the modern family, dual-income, career pursuits, particularly the challenge of women as ‘capitalists too’. Myriam is not a flawed woman any more than most, she is a driven, striving intellectual. However, she exhibits desires to be ‘where she belongs’, in the courtroom, pursuing cases and a chance encounter with an old fellow Law student takes her on this path to her old career. What Slimani does is carefully curate the process such that we do not judge Myriam’s decisions. She takes precautions, but the dilemma as the reader is the ugly, vicious clarity of hindsight. We understand Myriam, but we mourn for her as she accelerates along this doomed road.

Paul is a little less understandable. As a male reader, it may be the unconscious bias I bear, but Paul exudes no fatherly skills, he’s clumsy and self-interested. He has seemingly left it all to Myriam, and asks ‘what about the kids’ when she looks to move back to work, when his life has been altered little. A skilled lawyer, pitted against the free-flowing spirit of Paul and his heady dreams and low income, Myriam was always going to triumph. But, this novel needs Paul. It needs Paul to magnify the burden of decision-making, the heavily imbalanced expectation on the mother to make the right choices. It helps that Paul is a bit mopey, we understand Myriam’s decision-making, her pursuit of herself all the more.

There are hints humanity here, aside the plot’s ascerbic, grudging darkness. Despite the subject and the opening chapter, we are introduced to some loving, warm interactions. Husband and wife on holiday, nanny and friend in secret, wine-fuelled cahoots, nursery games with the children, even a romantic interest for Louise, but they are few and far between. Peppered throughout the novel with the intent to bring a little warmth, but with the opening tyrannical maelstrom, we gain little protection through these moments. They serve as a reminder, a hint that humans in their base form will pursue self-interest, everyone is and all of us are fallible. Even the psychopath has feelings, and therein lies the problem. It is, I find, a motion towards the fact that we as humans are keenly susceptible to our own demise. Our actions, our thoughts take us to dark and dangerous places, and some of these are unstoppable in their force. Myriam and her pursuit of Partner, Louise and her all-consuming desire for perfection, and validation through the eyes of her employers in a world that has sidelined her, knocked her back, dealt her a poor hand, it is far less about the inherent care for the children. Paul, his fallibility lies in his ignorance and adolescent aspirations. Even Wafu, whom we meet on a few brief occasions, yearns to change the way things are, edging around the migrant regulations and even her childlike desire to force others to accept her honey sweets, like they do ‘back home’. This theme of pre-determined fates, over which we try to force change and instead only delay, runs throughout. Humans are the way they are, they try to nudge the world their way, but they can’t. The Fates have their way. The structure of the book, opening with the ending, exemplifies and simplifies this for us. We know all too clearly the horror that is coming, all these characters do is bring on the inevitable with each chapter, each thought and action. All will be explained, but not in a way that brings us any comfort. It is this dark truth that somehow compels you to read on, with a sense of maybe?

For me, Lullaby is a dark and dour read. There is little humour here, no surprise given the subject, but if you are one for the thriller that offers a sweet escape, even for a moment, that will not be found. You will be chilled from page one, and hunkering under a broken tree for shelter, wishing for sunrise by the end.

dare to read?