Worst nightmare realized in ‘Nanny’

The first “hot” novel of 2018 is Leila Slimani’s international blockbuster, “The Perfect Nanny,” which has just been translated into English. But, be forewarned: Those readers sure to be most curious about it are the very readers who would do best avoid it.

The book aspires toward the taut elegance of that classic nanny nightmare tale, Henry James’ “The Turn of the Screw” and, in language and complexity, it comes pretty darn close. Indeed, Slimani’s novel won France’s most prestigious literary honor, the Goncourt Prize, when it was published there in 2016. The voice of Slimani’s omniscient thirdperson narrator is consistently chill and precise; her plot spares neither her characters’ fates nor her readers’ sensibilities. The opening sentences of “The Perfect Nanny” warn us that this is a story in which the worst that can happen and, in fact, just has:

“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 gray bag, which they zipped shut. The little girl was still alive when the ambulance arrived. … On the way to the hospital, she was agitated, her body shaken by convulsions.”

The two children have been murdered by their longtime nanny. Their mother, Myriam, discovers this grotesque scene upon her return home. This discovery occurs within the opening pages, so the intrigue here derives not from what has happened, but why? The nanny, Louise, is the central enigma of Slimani’s novel — a human black hole who swirls into the family’s living room one day and relentlessly pulls in and extinguishes the light in everyone’s lives.

As unflinching as Slimani is in her descriptions of the grisly damage that can be inflicted on the human body, she’s just as assured in assessing mental and emotional bruises and breakages, particularly as they develop in the intricate relationship between Louise and her employers.

Poetic phrases abound throughout Slimani’s novel and elevate it well above its formulaic premise, one that has inspired many a Lifetime television movie. But the takeaway of “The Perfect Nanny” is pretty much the same as the feminist backlash message of those movies. Namely, nanny who’s tending to your children may well be a psycho. Is any career worth that risk, ladies?

Surely it’s the enduring masochistic power of that nightmare that have made this slim novel an international best-seller. Talk about a guilty pleasure.