Originally written for hobby blog on 9 March 2018
lullabies for little criminals was one of many books I had to read for a Canadian lit class that was focusing heavily on trauma, trials, and tribulations. This course, along with my Canadian Drama course, went a long way towards me believing that us Canadian writers are a rather dour bunch. This book in particular stuck out in my mind for the graphic content between its pages, and I didn’t realize before sitting down to read it for this review that I had blocked much of that content from my mind, so I got the pleasure of revisiting it all as if it was for the first time.
It’s hard to talk about the plot of little criminals because, while there is a first and last page to the book, it feels very much like we were simply dropped into one chapter of Baby’s life, and simply rode along with her into another. The key elements to enjoying this book come from how it is written and how it tackles issues of drug abuse, statutory rape, prostitution, child neglect, poverty, and many more dark aspects of human society through the mind of a child.
Most people writing novels are going to be at least in early adulthood when they get their novels published, and O’Neill was no exception with little criminals being published when she was 33. A trend across almost all mediums is that writing children seems to be exceptionally difficult for many, let alone writing from the perspective of one. It’s hard to really show the naivety of a child when that it is something you’ve personally lost long ago. O’Neill tackles this problem in a way I found particularly unique. While Baby’s thoughts and motivations often feel too self-aware for a twelve year old, O’Neill certainly imbues Baby with the energy of one. I believe it mostly comes from the way Baby jumps frantically from topic to topic with seemingly little connections to each other or in the way she describes the events around her. One could argue that Baby’s sometimes jarring self-awareness could come from the fact she lives a traumatic childhood. As much as it is a cop-out to say you’ll have to read the book to truly understand this voice, you truly do. There’s only so much I can say without just regurgitating the words from the book here.
I found many scenes disturbing when I first read it back in university, and though I’ve become more desensitized to such things in media in recent years, I don’t think I could ever be fully comfortable reading about many of the events of little criminals happening to an adult, let alone a child. Reading the plot for the book on Wikipedia will you give a short, sterilized version of what you might be in for. I do believe that most of the book’s uncomfortable nature is not in the events themselves (as horrible as they are), but how they are perceived by Baby.
In the next few paragraphs, I’m going to discuss those events, which will mention drug abuse and addiction, rape, prostitution, suicidal thoughts, child abuse, and neglect. If that’s something you feel uncomfortable reading about or wish to avoid spoilers, scroll down until you see bolded text again if you wish to bypass that content.
The story begins with Baby and her father, who she always refers to by his first name, Jules, moving into a new apartment. You soon learn that this is neither the first time the small young family has moved, and it certainly won’t be the last. Jules had Baby at a very young age, Baby’s mother dying shortly after. Baby’s mother remains a mystery to the very end of the novel.
It is soon very apparent that, like their apartment hopping, Jules has a relationship with heroin that is very on-again-off-again. While he never does heroin in front of Baby, she is very aware of what is going on. Her nonchalance to Jules’ drug abuse makes it very apparent that this is something routine, and she even seems to prefer him on the drug, as shown when she visits him in rehab and he’s emotionally distant from her. Oftentimes throughout the novel, Baby comments on how she wishes she could try drugs like her father to be closer to him. At one point, she even gets her hands on some magic mushrooms, and the following hallucination is a surreal thing to read.
In addition to his drug abuse, Jules often leaves Baby alone for long stretches at a time, even for a month once, leaving Baby wandering the streets of Montreal on her own to run into a whole host of colorful characters. This does, however, lead to Baby being taken by child services and placed in a foster home while Jules gets over tuberculosis. This part of the novel seems to be the point where Baby seems most content after she settles into this new family, in which she and her foster mother are the only girls surrounding by a host of dysfunctional foster boys. Jules eventually comes to claim her and promises things will go back to normal. Things in the novel just seem to escalate from here from bad to worse for Baby.
Jules begins lashing out at Baby for little to no reason, likely due to his drug addiction. Before where his heroine use seemed a social thing he did with friends, it now makes him irritable and unstable. In staying out of what little security their apartment gives, Baby finds sympathy from Alphonse. It is because of her relationship with Alphonse that Jules sends her to a juvenile detention center which seems like a dark mirror of Baby’s earlier foster home, with a host of dysfunctional children like Baby.
Upon returning home, the relationship with Alphonse, who we later realize is a pimp, continues. It culminates in Alphonse, a fully grown adult, taking Baby’s virginity and making her one of his “girls.” These scenes were the worst for me to read, as it is all in the little details. Alphonse rapes Baby, and I can’t see it as anything other than rape regardless of how Baby, only 13 at the time, seems to be feel about it. Baby describes Alphonse as “the size of three of me” (208), and Baby’s reaction to the rape is a very complex one. Her initial worry is that Alphonse will be “freaked at how small my breasts were” (209), but that seems to subside and she says she takes comfort in his kisses, describing them “like tubes of lipstick being crushed against my mouth” and like babies’ feet stepping over her (209). On the surface, Baby seems to be taking all this with acceptance, not fully acknowledging any sadness or trauma she may have experienced:
“When I closed my eyes, it wasn’t as if he was on top of me. There was just a weight. I was making love to the Invisible Man. It felt like something terrible had happened to me and he was comforting me.”
(209)
After, Baby mentions that a comment from a teenager makes her want to kill herself and upon arriving home, she has a bath to feel “warm-blooded again” (210), and wants to fog up the mirrors so she doesn’t have to see herself.
Only a few of Baby’s scenes with johns are described, but they only cement the disturbing juxtaposition of Baby’s circumstance against her naivety, especially compared to her blossoming first love with her classmate Xavier. Baby continues to turn tricks, terrified of incurring Alphonse’s wrath if she leaves, and becoming addicted to heroine. In the climax of the novel, Xavier and Baby meet in Alphonse’s hotel room in which Baby had been living with him and they are intimate. Alphonse beats Xavier, sending him home, takes what heroine Baby earned, and when Baby wakes up the next morning, Alphonse is dead of an overdose.
With no where to go, Baby decides to go to a homeless shelter where Jules ended up, where it is revealed that Jules had had no intention of abandoning her, as Baby had previously thought. It is revealed that Jules has set up for he and Baby to live with his cousin in Val des Loups. The story ends after Jules reveals the true nature of Baby’s mother’s death, and upon arrival at the cousin’s house.
Start reading again here if you wish to skip discuss of potentially triggering content and spoilers.
little criminals is characterized by cycles, even as Baby’s life is forever progressing forward out of childhood and into adulthood. Baby and Jules move from apartment to apartment, Jules gets clean and relapses, Baby becomes happy or accustomed to her circumstances only to be wrenched out of them, etc. Moments when these cycles are broken indicate turning points in the novel, a moving from one circumstance to the next. On one occasion when Jules lashes out at Baby, he rips one of the last of Baby’s possessions he’d left undestroyed: a doll given to Baby by her mother. This could symbolize not only a deep sever in the once innocent and happy Father-daughter relationship, but Baby’s loss of innocence. Throughout the novel, Jules makes up new and different stories about Baby’s mother and how she dies every time Baby asks and only with him telling her the truth rather than a colourful story does the novel end.
The character of Jules uniquely intrigued me because I could see many people utterly hating him. He constantly relapses, is almost as much as child as Baby is, puts Baby through immense emotional stress, and is neglectful. We have to remember that this story is from the perspective of Baby, and while she is often angry or sad because of Jules, she is never outright afraid or scared of him. I think it’s Baby’s forgiveness of him that keeps Jules from being an unlikable character. It’s hard to say if she’ll keep this forgiveness as she ages and realizes Jules’ actions more and more.
While I generally believe a book should stand on its own, my version of the novel contained author insights and interviews at the back of the novel. It is through these O’Neill revealed a childhood similar in ways to Baby’s, though by no means memoir.
I believe some will be turned away from this book because of the sad, dark, and often violent content, but it is still well worth the read. O’Neill has a unique voice and a way of describing things which will keep readers engaged even in the down moments of the novel.
Some Quick Stats:
Author: Heather O’Neill
Published: 2006, by HarperCollins
Pages: 330