The Cherry Robbers
By Sarai Walker
4/5
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About this ebook
'Sarai Walker has done it again ... upends the Gothic ghost story with a fiery feminist zeal.' Maria Semple, bestelling author of Where'd You Go Bernadette
'A riveting, gothic page-turner' the New York Times
'Wonderful... A book one doesn't want to put down... I highly recommend' Sarah Jessica Parker
The reclusive Sylvia Wren, one of the most important American artists of the past century, has been running from her past for sixty years. Born Iris Chapel, of the Chapel munitions dynasty, second youngest of six sisters, she grew up in a palatial Victorian 'Wedding Cake House' in New England, neglected by her distant father and troubled, haunted mother.
The sisters longed to escape, but the only way out was marriage. Not long after the first Chapel sister walks down the aisle, she dies of mysterious causes, a tragedy that repeats with the second sister, leaving the rest to navigate the wreckage, with heart-wrenching consequences.
The Cherry Robbers is a wonderfully atmospheric, propulsive novel about sisterhood, mortality and forging one's own path.
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.
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Reviews for The Cherry Robbers
36 ratings3 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The 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.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I 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.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5“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.