Author(s): Nico Walker

Modern & Contemporary Literature

Reviewed by Martin. This devastating debut by Nico Walker is not for the faint hearted. With tight, punchy prose, Walker drags us through the hell of war, addiction, crime and love. Hard to put down, hard to classify, a real gem. Jesus' Son meets Reservoir Dogs in a breakneck-paced debut novel about love, war, bank robberies, and heroin. "Nico Walker's Cherry might be the first great novel of the opioid epidemic." --Vulture  "A miracle of literary serendipity. . . . Walker's] language, relentlessly profane but never angry, simmers at the level of morose disappointment, something like Holden Caulfield Goes to War." --The Washington Post  It's 2003, and as a college freshman in Cleveland, our narrator is adrift until he meets Emily. The two of them experience an instant, life-changing connection. But when he almost loses her, he chooses to make an indelible statement: he joins the Army.  The outcome will not be good for either of them.  As a medic in Iraq, he is unprepared for the realties that await him. He and his fellow soldiers huff computer duster, abuse painkillers, and watch porn. Many of them die. When he comes home, his PTSD is profound. As the opioid crisis sweeps through the Midwest, it drags both him and Emily along with it. As their addictions worsen, and with their money drying up, he stumbles onto what seems like the only possible 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.