The vertigo of trust October 20, 2026

Two children died in their Parisian apartment and their nanny, Louise, was found with them, after having attempted suicide. Leïla Slimani gives this information from the first pages of “Sweet Song”, then goes back through the weeks which preceded the tragedy to tell the story of the birth of trust, the place taken by a woman in a family and the solitude which ends up distorting her relationship with others. As Louise takes care of Mila and Adam, learns their habits, takes charge of their daily lives and becomes indispensable to their parents, a relationship of dependence develops, with its silences, its misunderstandings to the point of making the apparent sweetness of family life unbearable.

Mila and Adam are dead. The scene is given immediately, in all its violence. Without preparation or detour. The children are found in their apartment, Louise is there, and the reader knows from the start that this nanny to whom a family had entrusted their most precious possessions has become their murderer. The novel could have sought to build suspense around the identity of the culprit, but Leïla Slimani chooses another path, even more disturbing, that which consists of slowly going back in time and looking at how a woman can enter a house, gain the trust of those who live there, become familiar to the point of no longer being questioned and yet move towards an irreparable act.

Before the tragedy, there is the ordinary life of a Parisian family. Myriam has just had two children and for several years has carried a particular fatigue that accompanies days entirely devoted to the little ones, meals, baths, appointments and domestic chores.

Heavy loneliness

She loves her children, but she misses her job as a lawyer. She feels the need to resume files, to reconnect with colleagues, clients, professional discussions and that part of herself that existed before motherhood. Returning to work is then a necessity and, with it, the question of childcare arises. It is in this search that Louise enters their lives.

She arrives with a reassuring appearance, neat attire, punctuality that is immediately striking and an ability to quickly understand what is expected of her. She knows how to take care of children, but she also knows how to run a house, prepare meals, go shopping, tidy up the rooms and give the apartment an appearance of tranquility which allows Myriam to go to work with less worry.

The first days were enough to convince the family. Mila accepts Louise, Adam gets used to her presence and the nanny quickly understands their rhythm. She knows what time they eat, what they refuse on their plate, the games that amuse them, the little angers that must be let go and what helps to calm them down. She accompanies the children to the park, brings them home, prepares their dinner and makes sure they sleep.

Myriam finds time for her job. She can accept more files, come home later, organize her days with new freedom. Louise’s presence makes this new organization possible and the young mother gradually lets herself be won over by the reassuring feeling of knowing her children in good hands.

Louise, meanwhile, discovers a house that gives her a place. She works there, but she also finds a form of recognition there. Mila and Adam wait for her, call her, seek her attention and get used to living with her. This affection means a lot to her.

His personal life is far from presenting the same stability. She experiences financial difficulties, housing concerns and a loneliness that weighs on her days. Her relationship with her daughter is painful and her existence seems reduced to a succession of constraints that she endures without managing to find a real place in the world.

At Myriam and Paul, she feels useful and we count on her. His work brings him a salary, but it also gives him a feeling of being needed which gradually takes on considerable importance in his mind. This is how discomfort begins to form, quietly, in the ordinary activities of the house.

She wants to maintain this place with the children. The slightest distance can then take on a particular meaning for her, because her job represents much more than a professional activity.

Louise is a difficult woman to understand because she can be generous with children, attentive to their needs, full of energy in her work and, at the same time, overcome by frustrations which gradually gain momentum. She gives a lot and expects a lot. She gets attached and seeks to be loved. She works for a family and ends up wanting a position that goes beyond her job.

This confusion between professional role and personal attachment is increasingly strong. This is where the title of the novel takes on its full force. “Sweet Song” evokes a voice that accompanies a child to sleep, a nursery rhyme that reassures and envelops the night. The book transforms this gentleness into threat.

This knowledge of the end changes everything. When Louise takes the children to the park, the reader knows they are going to die. When she prepares a meal for them, the reader knows that it belongs to the last moments of their existence. The novel does not provide a formula that would explain everything. He leaves the reader with the task of following this inner degradation, of understanding how solitude, precariousness, old wounds and attachment to children mix to produce a situation that no one knows how to control anymore.

Professional freedom

Myriam, too, evolves in this story with her own contradictions. She wants to work without being burdened by the guilt of leaving her children. She appreciates Louise because it allows her to regain professional freedom, but this freedom is partly based on the work of another woman.

The comfort found by the family is linked to the availability of an employee who devotes a large part of her time to their home. The novel thus touches on a very concrete social reality. In many families, the ability for parents to work relies on people taking care of the children and domestic chores. Their presence becomes essential to the functioning of the house, while often remaining little visible in the social recognition granted to their work.

Leila Slimani makes it a human and social matter which allows us to understand the discomfort of a woman whose entire existence ends up being concentrated around a family that is not hers.

What started with an ad, an interview and a few trial days turned into an emotional dependence.

After the crime, the parents are left with their memories and a terrible question that accompanies family dramas, that of the signs that could have been seen earlier.

It is in this last violence that “Song of sweetness” finds its significance. Leïla Slimani tells the story of a nanny, a family, two children and a crime, but above all she observes the bonds that form in domestic intimacy, the dependencies that arise from work, the emotional expectations that can grow without being said and the difficulty of really knowing a person that we see every day.

Louise had walked through the door with a reputation as a serious woman. She had gained the trust of Myriam and Paul. She had won over Mila and Adam. No one could imagine that this same presence would lead to the death of the two children.

Leïla Slimani leaves a silent house, destroyed parents and the memory of two children whose games continue to inhabit the rooms. The gentleness announced by the title is no longer reassuring. It keeps the form of a childhood nursery rhyme, but this nursery rhyme now accompanies a story in which trust, slowly gained, will have led to the worst.

Amadou KEBE