Cherry

They attempt a normal life, but with their money drying up, he turns to the one thing he thinks he could be really good at - robbing banks.

Hammered out on a prison typewriter, Cherry marks the arrival of a raw, bleakly hilarious, and surprisingly poignant voice straight from the dark heart of America.

A remarkable accomplishment… [ Cherry ] will shake your soul.

[An] unforgettable mix of doomed and dazzling ... There’s a vivid, repulsive truth in the way Walker renders his subjects—a sort of social truth, stripped of morality, which is rare and riveting .

Cherry is a miracle of literary serendipity, a triumph ... In these propulsive pages, Walker draws us right into the mind of an ordinary young man beset by his own and his country’s demons. In the end, his only weapon against disintegration is his own devastating candor.

The first great novel of the opioid epidemic.

It is full of slapstick comedy , despite gut-wrenching depictions of dope sickness, the futility of war and PTSD... [Walker] writes dialogue so musical and realistic you’ll hear it in the air around you.

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.

Exceptional… This is a book that feels casually hilarious if you read a couple of pages; if you read a chapter it becomes impressive; and by the time you’ve finished, it’s devastating.

One of the year’s most talked-about books … Cherry has been compared with Hemingway, Denis Johnson and Salinger’s Holden Caulfield, and to that you could add Jack Kerouac … This rough, raw and poetic novel gives an unforgettable voice to a hollowed-out America in the grip of the opioid crisis.

Nico Walker’s first book has been compared to The Catcher in the Rye… A mix of deadpan funny, gently mournful and, at times, absolutely harrowing, Cherry is… the kind of literary debut authors dream about. Minus the being in prison part.

[ Cherry ] presents a searing indictment of both war and the indifference of the society in whose name war is fought… In this troubling and powerful book, Walker has surely created one of the most distinctive and memorable novels of the year .

Nico Walker is originally from Cleveland. He served as a medic on more than 250 missions in Iraq. Currently he has two more years to serve of an eleven-year sentence for bank robbery. Cherry is his debut novel.