Lullaby by Leila Slimani

Lullaby is plot, point of view, sharply drawn characters, shock by information. It won the Prix Goncourt. Would it have won a prize from a panel of English-speaking judges? I don't know. I think the mainstream literati prefer books where less happens and more is 'off the page' in nuanced hints, where we are given 'the information' by mannerisms of gesture, and half sentences. Lullaby gives us the pieces of a horror puzzle in a clever, well-constructed sequence.

Some of the less grim secondary characters are worth a book in themselves. I like big Paul the country boy husband and father -of-two, raised by Sylvie his die-hard hippie, old-school revo mum. When Paul's career as a music producer takes off he hides his secondhand Rolex!

I love Wafa, the only friend of Louise the tragic baddie who is apparently inner-city Paris' only white nanny. Wafa 'she reminded Louise of a big cat, not too subtle but resourceful' is loyal, friendly and has retained her youthful morals of backstreet Casablanca, which she moved on from by providing 'massage' to an old Frenchman. She loves little Alphonse , and befriends Louise on the park bench when they are nannying by offering cake. Lonely, homesick, without legal papers, exploited by her employers, Wafa makes the best of life's crumbs.

Louise is older. We learn that she soldiers on 'like a mule, like a dog whose legs have been broken.' And we learn that after a family day in the country Paul views Paris as 'an aquarium filled by animals with balding fur.'

The zoo of humanity, the metropolis versus the country. Where's home? Do we carry our old home inside us when we move to the city?

Good story telling; a lot of themes.