Building tension with every page, THE PERFECT NANNY is a compulsive, riveting, bravely observed exploration of power, class, race, domesticity, motherhood, and madness—and the American debut of an immensely talented writer. When Myriam decides to return to work as a lawyer after having children, she and her husband look for the perfect nanny for their son and daughter. They never dreamed they would find Louise: a quiet, polite, devoted woman who sings to the children, cleans the family’s chic Paris apartment, stays late without complaint, and hosts enviable kiddie parties. But as the couple and the nanny become more dependent on one another, jealousy, resentment, and suspicions mount, shattering the idyllic tableau. “I think this might be one of the most important books of the year. You can’t unread it. . . . If you’ve ever taken care of a kid, even if, just on a bus, someone has handed you a child for five seconds as they rummage through their purse, this will do something to you. . . . At the end of reading this book, I was so devastated, but I really felt like I was looking at the world through new eyes.” —Barrie Hardymon, NPR’s Weekend Edition Leila Slimani is the first Moroccan (and pregnant) woman to win France’s most prestigious literary prize, the Goncourt, which she won for THE PERFECT NANNY. A journalist and frequent commentator on women’s and human rights, she is French president Emmanuel Macron’s personal representative for the promotion of the French language and culture. Born in Rabat, Morocco, in 1981, she now lives in Paris with her French husband and their two young children.

In this “Meet Our Author” interview, Ms. Slimani offers insights into the creation of her book, personal research, plotting process, and style of storytelling. You “give away” the ending in a very shocking, blunt way in the first line of THE PERFECT NANNY. You write, “The baby is dead. It took only a few seconds.” Why did you choose to structure the novel this way? I did not want to write a classical thriller. It’s a specific type of book with its own codes: I did not want the police investigation or the morbid suspense around the likely killing of the children to be the main narrative element. With that time inversion, the reader effectively conducts the investigation himself. The stunning shock of the very first pages is meant to hook the reader and heightens their level of attention. They can then focus on the many different lights I cast on Louise and build their own perspective on what made Louise commit such a hideous act. The book construction “spoils” the ending but creates a very powerful, sometimes uncomfortable tension by placing the reader at the heart of the action. You’ve said that the character of Louise is influenced in part by your experiences observing your own childhood nanny, whose condition was very isolated, with no family of her own, and at times harbored resentment toward your family because of it.  Your portrayal of Louise is sympathetic as often as it is unsettling. What drew you to the idea of writing about a nanny? I wanted to tell my own experience of being a child who was partly raised by a nanny and a mother who entrusted her child with a nanny. I also wanted to explore to tell the living conditions of a modern family. I found the complexity and ambiguity of being a nanny interesting. Nannies are women who raise children who are not their own; they create ties by taking care of them, feeding them, loving them—and then eventually, they must leave them. They live in houses they do not own. They share all the intimacy of a family without ever becoming a true member of that family. On top of that, there are the common cultural and social and economic gaps between nannies and the families that employ them. I wandered a lot in public squares and children playgrounds to effectively observe those nannies at work; they are almost invisible to us and yet they make it possible for us to entertain a working life. I was fascinated by this woman proletariat, and I wanted to some extent shine a light on these forgotten women. Your first novel, Dans le jardin de l’ogre  (IN THE GARDEN OF THE OGRE, forthcoming from Penguin Books), concerns a female sex addict. How do you find your characters? Tolstoy used to say that Anna Karénina was actually living with him and that was she who dictated the book. It sounds crazy but I think it’s true. A character forces their way into your mind and feelings, becoming a real obsession. Everything then turns around them: the story, the environment, the action. The same happened with Adèle, the main character of Dans le jardin de l’ogre.  Following the Dominique Strauss Kahn case (again a true story local to New York City), I wondered, what if a woman had such a sexual addiction? This gave birth to Adèle who then lived with me for some time.