Lullaby

Slimani gives the ending away in the first line and spends the rest of the novel showing how things got there. The tension is not in suspense but in the psychological portrait of Louise, the nanny who embodies perfection until the edifice cracks. The novel also works as an analysis of social class, the instrumentalisation of care, and the employer-employee relationship. Uncomfortable, precise, sharp. One of the best French novels of the decade.