The Cherry Robbers

Written by Sarai Walker

Narrated by January LaVoy

""Sarai Walker has done it again. With The Cherry Robbers she upends the Gothic ghost story with a fiery feminist zeal."" —Maria Semple

The highly anticipated second novel from Sarai Walker, following her “slyly subversive” (EW) cult-hit Dietland—a feminist gothic about the lone survivor of a cursed family of sisters, whose time may finally be up.

IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN THE FIRST DAY OF THE REST OF THEIR LIVES.

INSTEAD IT WAS THE LAST.

Iris Chapel and her five elegant sisters, all of them heiresses to the Chapel firearms fortune, live cloistered in a lavish Victorian mansion. Neglected by both a distant, workaholic father and a mentally troubled mother—who believes their home is haunted by the victims of Chapel weapons—the sisters have grown up with only each other for company. They long to escape the eerie fairy tale of their childhood and move forward into the modern world, but for young women in 1950s Connecticut, the only way out is through marriage.

Yet it soon becomes clear that for the Chapel sisters, marriage equals death. 

When the eldest sister walks down the aisle, tragedy strikes. The bride dies mysteriously the very next day, leaving her family and the town in shock. But this is just the beginning of a chain of disasters that will make each woman wonder whether true love will kill her, too. Only Iris, the second-youngest, finds a way to escape—but can she outrun the family curse forever?

Sarai Walker, the acclaimed author of the cult-hit novel Dietland, building off the Gothic tradition of Shirley Jackson, brings to life this riveting, deliciously twisted feminist tale, a gorgeous and provocative page-turner about the legacy of male power and the cost of female freedom.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperAudio
• Release date: May 17, 2022
• ISBN: 9780358578468

Sarai Walker

Sarai Walker is the author of the novel Dietland, which has been published in more than a dozen countries and adapted as a television series for AMC. She has lectured on feminism and body image internationally, and has spoken about these topics widely in the media. Her articles and essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian and elsewhere, and she worked as a writer and editor on an updated version of Our Bodies, Ourselves. She holds an MFA in creative writing from Bennington College and a PhD in English from the University of London. She lives in Philadelphia.

Reviews for The Cherry Robbers

[othemts · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The Cherry Robbers is a gothic novel set largely in 1950s Connecticut about the six Chapel daughters whose family acquired great wealth producing firearms.  Their melancholy mother Belinda, deemed mentally ill by most, believes all the girls are cursed to die if they form romantic attachments to men.  The novel is narrated by Iris, the second youngest of the six children and the only survivor (not a spoiler, it's pretty much spelled out in the opening pages).When I saw that the story was set in Bellflower Village near Greenwich, CT I thought the name was close enough to Bell Haven, CT and that this novel would fictionalize the Martha Moxley murder.  Fortunately this was not the case, although it does draw on the history of firearms manufacturers in Connecticut and characters draw influence from the real life figures Sarah Winchester and Georgia O'Keefe.  The better part of the novel depicts Iris' coming of age story and the extensive grief of seeing her sisters one-by-one.  The novel has feminist overtones and critiques of the weapons industry.  The framing story set in the present day details Iris, a successful but reclusive artists living under the nom-de-plume Sylvia Wren, dealing with a persistent journalist attempting to reveal her hidden past.

[alliepascal-876024 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I read the first chapter and had that rare gut feeling of knowing that this was a book I was going to love. So I would recommend this: read the first chapter, and if the writing connects with you in that first part, and the narration and story so far intrigues you, don't look up any other reviews and go into the rest of the book blind.I didn’t just love this, this is my favorite read of 2022 so far. It's a thrilling gut-punch of a book. The night I finished it, it kept me up till 4AM because I didn't want to put it down. Maybe I need to read better books, but this doesn't happen often with me! The last time was with Emily M. Danforth's “Plain Bad Heroines” and... now that I think of it, I would recommend “The Cherry Robbers” to anyone who loved that book too. Like 100%.Read this if you love gothic books with gorgeous prose writing, feminist and queer elements, some spookiness, and a whole lot of tragedy.

[khenkins-687878 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

“I’ve finally come to realize that it’s my destiny to be one of the madwomen. One of the women who speaks the truth no matter how terrifying it might be.”Sylvia Wren, the protagonist of The Cherry Robbers, has been forced to write a memoir – partially to preclude a rapacious journalist from writing a magazine biography or her, and partially to attempt to exorcise her past that has haunted her. In her eighties, Sylvia is a widely famous painter living in New Mexico with her wife, far from her cursed family.The journalist's harassment forces Sylvia to reveal herself to the reader. We learn her secrets – her birth name was Lily Chapel, an heiress of the family firearms fortune. One of six sisters, she witnessed at least two of them commit suicide directly after being married, and expected that the rest of them would suffer the same fate. Her mother was cold and aloof, plagued by her belief that the ghosts of victims of the Chapel weapons haunted the huge “wedding cake” mansion. Shades of Sarah Winchester and her similar fear of avenging spirits.Sylvia's language is lush, beautiful; we see the Chapel household as isolated, stifled, awash with stifled female sexuality that loathes or fears sexual intimacy with a man. Sylvia's childhood was in the 1950s; neither her mother nor her older sisters obtained any independence. This atmospheric narrative, burdened with grief and guilt, is nevertheless entrancing as the reader follows the course of the Chapel sisters' lives with bated breath. At least I did. Family curses, ghosts, madness – the exotic features of the Gothic novel. But this novel is sadder, weighted with history and suppressed emotions.I received an advance copy of this book from the publisher via Bookish. This is an honest review.