Lullaby by Cécile Guillot is a short story about love and abuse, and the many forms which they can take.
The story follows Hazel Bloom, a sheltered young woman from a staunchly conservative family. Her parents remain stubbornly entrenched in their old-fashioned ways as the roaring 1920s unfold around them. Hazel chafes against her parents’ narrow-minded expectations for her life as a dutiful and obedient wife and mother.
After an attempt at matchmaking goes awry, Hazel’s mother discovers her daughter’s two dark secrets. Hazel is an aspiring writer, penning gruesome horror stories which shock her mother. She is also attracted only to the members of the fairer sex. Disturbed by their daughter’s proclivities, Hazel’s parents arrange with her uncle George, a doctor, that she be sent to an asylum to ‘purify her mind’.
At the Montrose Asylum Hazel meets the sardonic but passionate suffragette Josephine ‘Jo’ Foley, who instructs her about the ways of the institution. Another girl, a reclusive invalid Lulla Davis, catches Hazel’s attention with her unique ways and an air of mystery.
The three come together one night when an eerie lullaby rouses them from their sleep and calls them towards the uninhabited section of the asylum. Behind the creaky doors and lightless corridors, they discover an otherworldly, fantastical garden. Is the garden a place where dreams come true, or a nightmare they will never escape…?
Writing and Story
Have you ever had a perfect chocolate soufflé or a madeleine? A bite-sized gem of a pastry, which might not look like much at first glance, but then it melts in your mouth and it’s just… Yeah. That is what Lullaby was like for me.
The premise of a horror-writing girl being sent to an asylum and encountering some supernatural shenanigans sold me, but I didn’t expect the emotional punch that I got. Though the story is short, it packs a lot more than its page-count might signal. Thanks to Guillot’s thick and poetic style and neatly balanced beats of the plot, Lullaby offers an enchanting reading experience.
It seamlessly transports the characters and the reader between different places and their atmospheres. There’s the stifling dreariness of Hazel’s life with her family, with all the heteronormative expectations weighing on her shoulders. There’s the regimented life at the asylum, brimming with unease and the specter of punishment. And then there’s the secret magical garden to which the characters travel every night, ambiguous with its promises of happiness and threats of oblivion.
Given the limiting length of the story, its characters are brought to life with great skill, as are the tones and colors of its setting(s). Finally, through its plot and characters, Lullaby manages to weave together several strands of critique of abuse, control, and trauma, in a neat and satisfying manner.
Pros
I have called Lullaby a delicious soufflé, but—it should be clear by now—its frosting is made of dread. Hazel is, after all, a horror writer. This is a story about the horrors of sexist prejudice, institutional abuse, ableism, and sexual violence. Why is this mentioned under ‘Pros’, you ask? Because the way Cécile Guillot interweaves dread felt by characters with a condemnation of the horrors of violence is exquisite. And to put a cherry on top of the soufflé, Guillot offers a counterbalance to these dark elements in the subversive power of female friendships and lesbian desire.
Cons
The only real ‘con’ I can speak of is that Lullaby is short. It packs a lot in its limited page-count, but I feel the story would work even better, and its emotional punch gain strength, if it were a novella or a proper novel.
The Conclusion
Lullaby is a sweet story, a chocolate-glazed pastry. It is also a dreadfully bitter candy, like a splash of cold water, like an insulin shock; like a nightmare from which you can’t awaken. Although it’s only a morsel of bitter-sweet magic, I believe it will linger on your tongue for a long while. Its writing is strong, painting a wide array of places, people, and feelings. Its premise gets a satisfying and powerful delivery. The characters win your heart even though there’s only a few dozen pages to tell you their stories. Not only will you not regret reading Lullaby, but you will want more just like I did. Luckily for us, Cécile Guillot has plenty of other work to pore over.
Excerpt from Lullaby by Cécile Guillot
In front of us, there was a door.
“Where are we?” I whispered.
“Behind that, there’s just a corridor and rooms that are out of use. No one goes there. It’s empty and cold.”
How did she know? She wasn’t the type to let herself be stopped by a “No Entry” sign. Maybe she even took pleasure purposely breaking the rules. I felt torn between two opposite feelings: the pressing need to follow the voice and understand what was happening, and the desire to flee as far away as possible from this place. The song was like a siren’s call for me, bewitching and fatal.
“What’s going on?”
I startled and turned around toward the person who’d just spoken. A few steps away stood the young woman I’d seen when I arrived, then during painting class. The one with the long blonde hair. Her eyes were foggy with sleep and her voice raspy. She, too, had been awoken by the strange melody.
“Lulla Davis,” Josephine said as if she was introducing us.
The lullaby stopped. But it only made me want to open that door all the more to see what it was hiding. Could a child be there? Perhaps one of the night nurse’s daughters? Jo stepped up and pushed the door open. The corridor lay before us, dark and menacing. Light, musical laughter rang out and the voice seemed to grow more distant, urging us to follow it, but neither of us moved. A slight movement caught my eye. It was a moth with golden wings. I stood there watching it, not knowing how to react. The situation seemed unreal. Was I dreaming? Jo stepped back and collided into me, pulling me out of my thoughts. I looked up. She was staring at something. A moving shadow in the darkness.
“There’s something there,” she whispered.
We heard a rustling sound. Leaves? Whatever it was, it couldn’t be good. I turned around, ready to run.
Lulla was staring at me, her hand against her chest, eyes wide. She, too, seemed to have seen something, but I didn’t have time to ask her. I grasped her elbow and pulled her along. It shocked her awake and she started to run next to me. I could hear Josephine’s steps behind us.
When we arrived in our corridor, we finally stopped to catch our breath.
“This is crazy,” Jo panted.
“We’re in an asylum,” I said, vying for a joke.
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Bits and Bobs
ISBN number: 9782375681725
Publisher: Trepidatio/Journalstone
Note: I received a free review copy of Lullaby by Cécile Guillot No money was exchanged for this review. When you use our links to buy we get a small commission which supports the running of this site
