“The Perfect Nanny” Book Novel | The Bindery

Submitted by the Event Organizer

Booksmith and the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the United States present Leila Slimani, author of the sensational 2016 Prix Goncourt-winning novel The Perfect Nanny (Chanson douce), reading from her work and in conversation with Michelle Richmond, author most recently of the profound thriller The Marriage Pact. Don’t miss it.

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. 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.

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.

Michelle Richmond is the bestselling author of The Year of Fog, No One You Know, Hum: Stories, Golden State, Dream of the Blue Room, and the award-winning The Girl in the Fall-Away Dress. A native of Mobile, Alabama, she lives with her husband and son in San Francisco. The Marriage Pact is her most recent novel.

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