The Caretakers

November 1, 2021

In the upscale Parisian suburb of Maisons-Larue, reserved American au pair Alena is accused of killing her charge, and the neighbors divide their blame between Alena and the victim's icily uninvolved mother. Those contributing to the conversation include au pairs Lou and Holly; teenage Nathalie, hungry for a mother's love; and Geraldine, worried about how her students are handling their friend's death. From an MFA candidate at the Michener Center for Writers; with a 100,000-copy first printing.

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February 15, 2022
In 2015 Paris, when the city has recently been rocked by terrorist attacks, another tragedy has occurred. Eight-year-old Julien Chauvet has died, and the Chauvets' au pair, Alena, is arrested. Alena is part of a network of au pairs in Madame Geraldine's French class, most of whom have come from America, leaving many different lives behind. The novel explores the perspectives of several women in the suburb of Maisons-Larue: Charlotte, Julien's grieving mother; Lou, a rebel who works for Charlotte's standoffish neighbor; Holly, who is desperate for friends in France; Charlotte's sullen teenage daughter, Nathalie; and Madame Geraldine, who knows all the girls intimately. Flashbacks to their lives before the boy's death paint a picture of the tumultuous world they've shared. Despite the high-concept premise, Bestor-Siegal's debut is not about the hunt for a killer or Alena's culpability. It's lyrically written and contemplative, pulling the reader into a complex web of vivid characters. Bestor-Siegal brings an authentic perspective from her own experiences living in France. A perfect book-group title, especially for Francophiles.

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April 4, 2022
Bestor-Siegal explores the isolating world of au pairs in her introspective debut set in Maisons-Larue, France. The quiet, predominantly white town is rattled by the arrest of Alena, an American au pair charged with the murder of Julian Chauvet, an eight-year-old boy she had in her care. The mystery of what happened to Julien unravels through the perspectives of a neglected daughter and a number of caretakers‚ from au pairs to the mothers who sometimes feel inadequate, and their shame is only heightened by the community’s class-based judgment (Bestor-Siegal sums up the collective attitude among the working mothers: “This is what happens when you don’t raise your own children”). The whodunit plotline, though, is entirely eclipsed by a series of powerful narratives from Alena as well as fellow au pairs Holly and Lou, all of whom deal with homesickness and struggle to adapt in France; and from their host families who keep disrespecting their boundaries. While it takes a while to understand how each story and character connects to Julien’s murder due to the slow progression of the plot, Bestor-Siegal excels at character development. Once the author gets going, she cracks open an intriguing world. Agent: Suzanne Gluck, WME.

Starred review from February 15, 2022
The mysterious death of a French child is blamed on an American au pair--but there's more to the story. This debut novel unfolds in Maisons-Larue, a wealthy suburb of Paris, where au pairs sneak out every night to the cafes and clubs of the city center and wealthy, frustrated mothers compete for attention from their absent husbands, all in the immediate aftermath of the 2016 terrorist attacks on Paris. Alena and Lou, the au pairs at the center of the story, are flawed, full of contradictions, and seem fated to disappoint those who dare to love them. The women's voices we hear in the novel--including the beloved French teacher G�raldine, forever mistaken for a foreigner in her own country because of her darker skin tone; Charlotte, the dead child's mother, who has been desperate to hide her own less-than-pedigreed upbringing; Nathalie, Charlotte's teenage daughter, who feels like an outsider in her mother's second marriage; the au pairs who are trying to disappear from their past lives or find truer versions of themselves in France--all seem focused, in one way or another, on a shared desire for love and belonging. But it is the cold, quiet, could-be murderous Alena, with her silence throughout much of the novel and refusal to be known, that keeps the reader wanting more. When we finally hear her perspective, Alena offers a darker, more ominous solution to the problem facing the women in this world: "She tries not to want, and most of the time, she thinks she's successful." A well-paced narrative that moves through time and multiple perspectives with deft precision, this is a heart-wrenching exploration of who counts as family and how dangerous it can be to let someone in. A novel about the "people who aren't completely part of the family" and the true cost of belonging.

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