That masculine grit scratched a couple of critics the wrong way. Ron Charles’s glowing review in the Washington Post (“searing authenticity” straight-faced wit” “mournful candor”) redefined Walker’s hard-luck story as a rare asset: “ Cherry is a miracle of literary serendipity, a triumph born of gore and suffering that reads as if it’s been scratched out with a dirty needle across the tender skin of a man’s forearm.” Vulture’s own Christian Lorentzen, in an early, tone-setting review, called it maybe “the first great novel of the opioid epidemic,” and noted Cherry’s lack of “traditional psychologizing.”

As Rien Fertel writes at the AV Club, “It’s like college, or high school, or that insidious hometown bar filled with men who never graduated beyond punching each other in the balls.” Quil Lawrence, for NPR, put it more succinctly: “Walker writes about Iraq from a grunt’s-eye level.” Lawrence also commented on the dry, straight-faced humor of Cherry, which works because its unnamed narrator lacks pretension.

In their near universal praise, critics dwelled on Walker’s authentic voice. Good press never guarantees great reviews, but the right backstory might. (Walker is more fallen middle class, but no matter.) Cherry sits in the center of a Venn diagram of Trump-era flash points, which coastal critics are dying to have artfully explained to them: opioid addiction, the plight of veterans who shouldered the burden of misbegotten wars, and the way institutions have failed the white working class. It wasn’t just Walker’s backstory that augured good press. Finally, after publishing giant Knopf pays Tyrant for the rights and works out the legal complications: Cherry. An editor at tiny Tyrant Books sees the profile, sends books to Walker in prison, and says, “You should write something.” Walker writes something and sends it to the editor, followed by time and drafts and conference calls from prison. The author joins the Army, comes home, gets addicted to heroin, robs some banks, gets caught, has - curiously - a BuzzFeed profile written about him. A New Yorker feature is forthcoming.īy now, you might have heard the story.

Within a few days of the book’s release, pieces ran in the Washington Post, Esquire, NPR, Mother Jones, AV Club, Entertainment Weekly the New York Times books beat reporter Alexandra Alter wrote a profile. Last week’s book news cycle had a clear winner: Nico Walker’s Cherry.

Cherry by Nico Walker