“The baby is dead. It took only a few seconds.”
Browsing the local bookshop, I gasped in shock as I read those
words. The first chapter is only 2.5 pages long, so I just continued reading,
mouth open. Immediately I knew I wanted
to read this book, and that it was one I wouldn’t put down until it was
finished, so armed with my new purchase, I headed off to the local park, bought
an ice-cream, and continued reading.
“When
Myriam decides to return to work, she and her husband look for a nanny for
their two young children. They find their dream candidate: Louise: a quiet,
polite and devoted woman who sings to their children, cleans the family's chic
Paris apartment, stays late without complaint and hosts enviable birthday
parties. But as the couple and their nanny become increasingly dependent on
each other, jealousy, resentment and suspicions start to breed, and Myriam and
Paul's idyllic domesticity is shattered.”
From the first lines, Leila Slimani sets out her intention,
that this is going to be a horrific tale and one that those triggered by child
violence should not read. There is not going to be a soft approach to any of
the issues which are raised in this book. Within the first paragraph you know
that a baby is dead, a little girl is in a critical condition and the mother is
hysterical. A 4th person has tried to take their own life. The
wheels have been set in motion and the reader must make an uncomfortable decision,
keep reading and head out on a journey
to find out how and why the children are dead, or leave the book on the shelf
and find something less disturbing in the bookshop.
TRUST. Such a short word, but so powerful. Believing
someone, hoping that they are honest, reliable, that they are speaking the
truth…it is a difficult thing to do, especially the older you get. We put trust
in people all our lives, from our early years of trusting someone with a secret
that they then tell the whole school about, so you find out that they’re not as
reliable as once thought, to getting older and trusting a complete stranger to
operate on us.
I’ve never had the worry about employing someone to look
after a child. The closest I’ve got to is when I go on holiday, there’s only
one person I trust with the welfare of my cat; God knows what I’ll do if I (or
they) ever move house. I know my cat is safe, so I really can’t imagine how
hard it would be for me to put my trust in someone to look after my flesh and
blood – especially a small defenceless child.
“ ‘My nanny is a
miracle-worker.’ That is what Myriam says when she describes Louise’s sudden
entrance into their lives.”
After interviewing several candidates for the role of a
nanny, Myriam and Paul decide they have struck gold when Louise walks into
their life. She is immediately at ease holding the baby and playing games with
Mila, calling her a princess. She cooks dinner and cleans the house so that
Myriam can concentrate on her career as a successful lawyer, and Paul can continue
with his demanding schedules working as a music producer. Louise quickly makes
herself indispensable, the household has never run so smoothly, but there is
already a chilling discomfort as each page is turned, the reader is aware,
unlike the parents, that Louise is no Mary Poppins.
Slimani has written a chilling and clever novel, because the reader is always a step ahead of the family. As the family live in their ignorant bliss, as a reader you are silently shouting at the parents to get rid of the nanny. However important their respective careers might be, the children need to come first. There is something horrific in watching events unfurl and not being able to do anything about it, and for a time you forget this is just a book, the story is not real. But then you question could it happen in real life and then all these true crime dramas come to mind…and then you start to wonder, if it did, would I be able to see the warning signs, or would I be blissfully unaware like Myriam and Paul until it was too late?
Louise is a fascinating, complex character. At times,
Slimani’s prose has you feeling sympathy towards her. Set in Paris, you can see
the inequality in living standards, and that behind Louise’s perfect exterior,
there is a life of brutality, of unpaid bills and squalor. This is a woman who
has endured domestic violence and nearly aborted her daughter, a daughter whom
she struggled to form any meaningful relationship with. She yearns for all the
things she sees her past and present employers have. We begin to learn that
whilst she makes the effort to cook for others and make their evenings comfortable,
no-one has ever done the same for her. Slowly you begin to unpick the real
person hidden deep inside this perfect nanny.
In the apartment, the
atmosphere grows heavier. Myriam tries not to let the children perceive it, but
she is more distant with Louise. She speaks to her in a clipped voice, giving
her precise instructions. She follow’s Paul’s advice, which she repeats to
herself: ‘She’s our employee, not our friend.’ ”
Louise’s job as a nanny means she notices everything about
her employers, the secrets they hide, yet she is invisible to them. She is just
the nanny, they don’t see she is a person who yearns for a little recognition for
the thankless task of always being there for their little darlings while they
concentrate on their careers. When she is invited on holiday with the family
and they find out she can’t swim, instead of empathy and understanding, she is
ridiculed. Suddenly you find yourself feeling some sympathy for Louise,
forgetting momentarily what she has done, because the family are rude,
unfeeling, unkind.
When Louise first started in the job she received glowing
comments, but that quickly disappeared as expectations of her grew. Simple
things like sharing a cup of tea with Myriam are withdrawn, and you slowly
begin to understand how this effects Louise, a person who is ultimately lonely
and misunderstood, silently crying out for someone to make her feel like a
human being.
It slowly dawns on Louise that she is not as important to
the family as she believed, and her obsessive nature becomes more dangerous, with
her actions become darker and more depraved. And you know that even if you
could shout a warning to the parents, they wouldn’t believe you. Louise is too perfect,
she has noted every little detail about Paul and Myriam’s friends, what their food
preferences are, and so her Friday night dinners are legendary. Everything is
done to perfection, all tasks completed
whilst her young charges play at her feet. How does she do it?
Whilst this is a quick book to read, the tension created
throughout the book is astounding and it brings to light the complexities of
modern parenthood and asks the questions as to whether we really can have it
all? Whilst the eventual murders might seem a bit extreme and unlikely to
happen, it is staggering how Slimani can take the reader through a journey of a
persons damaged psyche, and make her irrational actions almost seem rational. I’m
not condoning what Louise did, but once you venture through her earlier life, you
can recognise why it happened, why she was so mentally unstable.
Life isn’t fair, there will be those who are blessed with
children, money, a nice house, whilst others will be penniless, destitute.
Marriage will not be equal, or easy, it will cause tension, and children will
further increase that tension. This is a book that highlights these issues in a
blunt manner. It is easy to sit and judge people for the decisions they make,
but this book forces the reader to view things from various people’s perspectives
and opens channels for conversation starters. It is hard to have empathy for a
person who has committed murder, but would she have become so obsessed with the
family if she hadn’t been so lonely or desperate to fit in?
I finished this book feeling a raft of emotions, anger,
heartbreak, dread, empathy, despair. I felt uncomfortable, I was put in a
position where I had to look at individuals and I felt mixed emotions about
them all. This might be a tragic and difficult storyline to read, but it is
well worth making the effort to do so.
Genre: Fiction, Thriller, Mystery Thriller, Psychological Thriller,
Crime
Release Date: 26th July 2018
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Pages: 218
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