National BestsellerNow a major motion picture starring Tom Holland and directed by the Russo Brothers. A young medic returns from deployment in Iraq to two things: the woman he loves, and the opioid crisis sweeping across the Midwest. In this “miracle of literary serendipity” (The Washington Post), after finding himself deep in the thrall of heroin addiction, the soldier arrives at what seems … addiction, the soldier arrives at what seems like the only logical solution: robbing banks.
Written by a singularly talented, wildly imaginative debut novelist, Cherry is a bracingly funny and unexpectedly tender work of fiction straight from the dark heart of America.
A PEN/HEMINGWAY AWARD FINALIST
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: THE NEW YORKER • ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY • VULTURE • VOGUE • LIT HUB
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After page one, only the faint hearted will manage to put down this brilliant screech from a life of war, crime, and addiction, a powerful book that declares the arrival of a real writer who has made art out of anguish.
Harrowing, heartbreaking, and sadly funny. Cherry is a terrific book, a cool book, and Walker’s voice is keen and vigilant and uniquely his own.
well written and very realistic
Great first novel by Nico Walker. He writes in the style of a 21st century John Updike. Rough but authentic language. Excellent story line. Read it and enjoy it before you watch it on Netflix.
I liked this book. It had a few issues in the writing, but overall, it was a good read.
Sad and sometimes disappointing, not the writing, but the protagonist’s decisions.
I did not like this “f—ing” bragish book. I can’t imagine who I would ever recommend this book to.
I cannot believe that I have not reviewed this book yet. Thanks, Donald Ray Pollock for recommending it. Folks, you can now throw away The Catcher in the Rye. That book reflected the state of a generation that was relevant for two or three generations, but its time is done. Cherry is the Catcher in the Rye for the 21st century. Its main character is the kid next door. He does the things that your sister’s son does, and his mind and values are in the same place. He experiences war in a way that so many of our veterans experience war–and we do not know how they feel. We can only look at them and wonder, “What is wrong with you?” You might figure it out if you dare read and understand the main character here. This is the citizen that so many young people, veterans or not, become when we do not provide them with some since of value, worth, or accomplishment, when we do not have realistic expectations for their success in life, and when we let our children and young adults drift through life without understanding love.
I know the main character here, and he scares me. He lives in a hell that we have fashioned for him, but he perpetuates it. I do not think I will ever read this book again, but I read it about a year ago, and I think about nearly everyday. If you work in the public arena as I do, you see these wasted and discarded younger people every single day. It is heart-wrenching.
Not the oo-rah-for-our-American-hero-soldiers Facebook-meme fantasy often seen today. Instead, Nico Walker’s debut autobiographical novel impales the soul of the thoughtful reader, leaving a gap fillable only by honest introspection. It starts like a coming-of-age story about a prevalent reality in our society: young man adrift fails at school, joins the Army, and becomes a combat medic—for no apparent reason except it’s there. His experiences, both in combat scenarios and his own personal evolution, thrust him into PTSD-driven self-destructive post-Army agony, where his sense of self and love morph into the horrors of drug addiction, crime, and hopes never realized. The first person unreliable narrator POV is powerful in its honesty and insight, and its portrayal of self-deception and obliviousness. Think Haruki Murakami’s NORWEGIAN WOOD meets Dr. Leonard Sax’s BOYS ADRIFT in a hellacious environment reminiscent of RESERVOIR DOGS and THE WIRE. It’s not pretty or easy to read, but it is a stirring experience.
CHERRY grabbed me by the ladyballs, twisted, and never let go. I finished it hours ago, and it still has my ladyballs. I’d kinda like them back.
From the opening scene, I was captivated by the unnamed narrator’s story, which is apparently based on the author’s life. I’d really like to sit down and talk to him. I imagine he’d make fascinating dinner company. This book conjured every emotion on the spectrum. One minute I’d laugh, the next, I’d be angry, and then, I’d cry.
How does a person sink to such depths as this? The narrator seems to have had a decent home life growing up. His parents had money. They didn’t treat him badly. He was able to go to college. Yet, he chose a life steeped in the mire of drugs, sex, and pervasive apathy about anything other than heroin.
The part about his time in Iraq hit me pretty hard. There were horrors galore–violence, racism, general shittiness. The narrator never seemed to let his experiences there bother him much on the outside, but it’s clear that it affected him deeply on the inside. I couldn’t stomach the especially cruel parts. The soldiers treated human beings in Iraq like objects to be toyed with, fucked with, intimidated, and disposed of. It was disgusting. Nauseating. If the parts of the story from Iraq are anywhere close to true, I have zero respect for the U.S. soldiers he encountered. He made military people look like awful human beings who did some seriously fucked up shit. If they’d been anywhere else in the world and done that shit, they’d be in jail. Or executed. Some of these guys were hardcore murderers who didn’t give a fuck who they killed. They just wanted to kill *someone*. Serial killers in the making. They were horrible, horrible people.
Then when he got home … Jesus. His portrayal of heroin addiction was gut-wrenching. Shooting up, puking guts out, track marks, abcesses, more puking, looking the other way as abuses happen to others right in front of them, threats of HIV due to shared needles and wanton, unprotected sex with total strangers with no regard for their supposedly “monogamous” partners … The list of atrocities went on and on. And then came the bank robberies. For what? More heroin.
By the time I finished the book, I was fucking exhausted and depressed that any human being could sink this low and not give a fuck about finding enough hope and strength to change anything. That was the bottom line. NOBODY CARED that they were so strung out they had to rob banks for their next fix so they could barely function in a diminished capacity. None of them cared. The entire undercurrent of the book was apathy, and it never let up from the first chapter to the very last. It made my heart hurt.
The message is clear: the opioid epidemic is real, and it doesn’t discriminate. Same goes for depression and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Was this book good? Yes. Overall, it was excellent. But it was a damn hard read. I listened to CHERRY on Audible, and the narrator Jeremy Bobb blew me away. His was one of the best performances I’ve ever heard in an audiobook. I really enjoyed him.
If you have a strong stomach and don’t mind getting a little (a lot?) on you, give CHERRY a try. But be prepared for the fallout. This one’s a hope killer.
I did enjoy this book. It is raw and brutal and graphic. Concerning addiction it is very real. I know – I’ve been in the narrator’s shoes. The narrator enters the Army and suffers PTSD. After returning home he becomes opiate addicted and eventually starts robbing banks. But the selfishness and constant self destructive behavior are evident throughout the entire story. Nico Walker’s research and understanding of the subject is on point. Good stuff.
A fresh voice captures the tragedy of addiction and war.
Heartbreaking, unadorned, radically absent of pretense, Cherry is the debut novel America needs now, a letter from the frontlines of opioid addiction and, almost subliminally, a war story.
Nico Walker’s Cherry is a wrenching, clear-eyed stare-down into the abyss of war, addiction and crime, a dark tumble into scumbaggery, but it’s also deeply humane and truly funny. That is one of the reasons I love it so much: it makes you laugh and ache at the same time, in the manner of the great Denis Johnson.
Someone once said there are only two things worth writing about, love and death. Nico Walker may know more about these two subjects than 99.9% of fiction writers working today. Read Cherry instead of the latest piece of fluff — it might be the only time when you truly feel a writer is actually baring their soul to you.