LULLABY by Leïla Slimani

“The baby is dead. It took only a few seconds. The doctor said he didn’t suffer. The broken body, surrounded by toys, was put inside a grey bag, which they zipped shut.”

“The little girl was still alive when the ambulance arrived. She’d fought like a wild animal. They found signs of a struggle, bits of skin under soft fingernails. Her throat was filled with blood. Her lungs had been punctured, her head smashed violently against the blue chest of drawers.”

“The mother was in a state of shock. When she went into the room where her children lay, she let out a scream, a scream from deep within, the howl of a she-wolf. It made the walls tremble.”

“They had to save the other one too, of course. With the same level of professionalism; without emotion. She didn’t know how to die. She only knew how to give death. She had slashed both her wrists and stabbed the knife in her throat.”

In 2012, a nanny killed two of the three children she was taking care of. This was happening in Manhattan, New York. Then, using the same kitchen wife, she stabbed herself several times in the neck. But this time she was not successful. And the people from the ambulance had to help her while they were watching, powerless, the dead bodies of the children.

I read in the School of life that: “by telling a story, a book is radically simpler than lived experience”. Because “Writers often do a lot of explaining along the way. We finally understand what is going on.”

This is what Leïla Slimani is doing in her book “Lullaby”.
Moving the action from New York to Paris, on native land, the writer is telling us how a mother struggles when she selects a nanny for her children. The writer is describing the mother’s guilt when she returns to her job. But the writer also explains to us in details the reason a woman becomes a nanny, and the feelings a nanny has when she is part of a family she is helping out with the children.

While I read the book, I kept hearing the writer singing me a lullaby, so it would be easier for me to accept the painful words.

Kindle, 2018