Publishers Weekly
03/07/2022
The delightfully eerie latest from Walker (Dietland) follows a woman who reinvents herself after a painful childhood. The story begins with Sylvia Wren, a famous artist in her 80s, living in present-day Abiquiu, N.Mex., while her partner, Lola, is away in Brazil. Sylvia receives a letter from a journalist with questions about her past that threaten to reveal her true identity as Iris Chapel. Walker then flashes back to 1950s Connecticut, where Iris grows up with her five older sisters and a mother who has a habit of staring off into the woods and dropping her china before declaring she feels “something terrible” will happen. Their father, who isn’t around much, runs Chapel Firearms, and the women believe their house is haunted by those who were killed by the guns manufactured by the company. Walker does a great job weaving this thread of gothic mystery with revelations about the woman Iris becomes, a “haunted mother, haunted daughter.” A mix of bildungsroman and ghost story, the narrative gains strength as it illuminates its characters’ power of intuition, especially when they’re not afraid to use it. This uncanny tale of dark origins shines brightly. Agent: Alice Tasman, JVNLA. (May)
From the Publisher
A New York Times: "18 New Works of Fiction to Read This Spring" A Vogue: "The Best Books of 2022 So Far" A CrimeReads' "Most Anticipated Crime Fiction of 2022" A BookPage's "Most Anticipated Fiction of 2022"? A Popsugar's "Best New Book Release" An EW.COM's "16 Novels We're Excited For This Summer" —
"Hooray! Sarai Walker has done it again. With The Cherry Robbers she upends the Gothic ghost story with a fiery feminist zeal." — Maria Semple, bestselling author of Where'd You Go, Bernadette and Today Will Be Different
“Oh, I love Sarai Walker’s The Cherry Robbers! The Chapel sisters, of a fictional gun manufacturing fortune, grow up in a house that looks like a wedding cake. But each of them is fated to die on their wedding night, a multi-generational curse that seems to set free only those women who put art above marriage. A twisted take on the artist’s coming-of-age story, The Cherry Robbers tackles deep questions about marriage, sexuality, familial loyalty, guns and the artist’s life—a witty, delicious, demented joyride.” — Susan Scarf Merrell, author of Shirley, now a major motion picture
“Walker's take on the classic Gothic tale fairly shimmers, titillating with a heady concoction of terror and desire, frothy with fever-pitched emotions, and dark with smothering melancholy and macabre spectres.” — Booklist (starred review)
“Walker gives us indelible descriptions of flowers, foods, and fabrics as we coexist with the vivid Chapel sisters, but inside the lush exterior, the novel thrums with violence, oppression, and blood. This fierce feminist tale hit me in the heart and hasn’t let me go.” — Stacey Swann, author of Olympus, Texas
“Delightfully eerie…This uncanny tale of dark origins shines brightly.” — Publishers Weekly
“This gorgeously written and all-consuming gothic explores feminism and sexuality and left me more than a little heartbroken.” — Buzzfeed
“Walker’s long-anticipated sophomore novel is a spooky departure from the feminist anarchy of ‘Dietland,’ but a welcome one that speaks to the author’s range.” — WBUR Boston
"In 2017 New Mexico, famed artist Sylvia Wren lives her life in virtual seclusion, but her true identity is about to be exposed by a determined journalist. So begins Sarai Walker's sharp, gothic tale "The Cherry Robbers." — Popsugar
"The story takes one interesting new turn after another, gathering into a heady mix of gothic fiction and incisive art thriller." — CrimeReads
"A book one doesn't want to put down." — Sarah Jessica Parker
Booklist (starred review)
Walker's take on the classic Gothic tale fairly shimmers, titillating with a heady concoction of terror and desire, frothy with fever-pitched emotions, and dark with smothering melancholy and macabre spectres.
WBUR Boston
Walker’s long-anticipated sophomore novel is a spooky departure from the feminist anarchy of ‘Dietland,’ but a welcome one that speaks to the author’s range.
Maria Semple
"Hooray! Sarai Walker has done it again. With The Cherry Robbers she upends the Gothic ghost story with a fiery feminist zeal."
Susan Scarf Merrell
Oh, I love Sarai Walker’s The Cherry Robbers! The Chapel sisters, of a fictional gun manufacturing fortune, grow up in a house that looks like a wedding cake. But each of them is fated to die on their wedding night, a multi-generational curse that seems to set free only those women who put art above marriage. A twisted take on the artist’s coming-of-age story, The Cherry Robbers tackles deep questions about marriage, sexuality, familial loyalty, guns and the artist’s life—a witty, delicious, demented joyride.
Buzzfeed
This gorgeously written and all-consuming gothic explores feminism and sexuality and left me more than a little heartbroken.
Stacey Swann
Walker gives us indelible descriptions of flowers, foods, and fabrics as we coexist with the vivid Chapel sisters, but inside the lush exterior, the novel thrums with violence, oppression, and blood. This fierce feminist tale hit me in the heart and hasn’t let me go.
Library Journal - Audio
06/01/2022
In 2017, Sylvia Wren is one of the United States' premier artists but lives as a recluse in New Mexico. Then she's contacted by a persistent reporter, which is a problem since Wren is living under an assumed identity in an attempt to escape her past as Iris Chapel. In 1950, the six Chapel sisters were living affluent lives as heiresses, but their father was distant and their mother was haunted by ghosts—some her own, some being victims of the family's firearm business. Each of the Chapel girls longed to escape their home life, and the first two made it out by marrying before promptly dying. Iris escaped too, but how long can she avoid the family curse? Part gothic ghost story and part coming-of-age tale, Walker's epic novel has a modern feminist spin. The narration by January LaVoy provides a wistful look at the sepia-toned time of Iris's life, while also hinting at the more sinister aspects of being a Chapel sister. VERDICT Walker's (Dietland) second novel would be a great listen for fans of Jeffrey Eugenides's The Virgin Suicides and Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House.—Elyssa Everling
Library Journal
09/01/2021
In 2017 New Mexico, celebrated artist Sylvia Wren is confronted by a journalist wanting to expose her secret: she's living under an assumed identity, having been born Iris Chapel in 1950s Connecticut, one of six sisters who stand to inherit a fortune built on firearms. Their mother believed that victims of gun violence haunt their house, and with tragedy striking repeatedly as the sisters begin to marry, Iris flees to build a new and safer life. Following Dietland, turned into a hit TV show; with a 40,000-copy first printing.
APRIL 2022 - AudioFile
January LaVoy narrates a chilling audiobook, complete with ghosts, madness, and secrets. LaVoy channels Sylvia Wren, a world-famous, reclusive Arizona artist. Currently, she’s being hounded by a journalist who’s threatening to reveal her real identity: She is the heiress to the Chapel Firearms fortune, Iris Chapel. One-upping the reporter, Sylvia writes her own memoir, offering a disturbing look at her childhood, her domineering father, and her emotionally broken mother. LaVoy navigates the backstory smoothly, becoming each of the six doomed sisters and their Cassandra-like mother, who foresees “something terrible” for her daughters if they marry: “The Chapel sisters: First they get married; then they get buried.” LaVoy’s intimate breathy tones create the perfect gothic ambiance. Her delivery of the chilling details keeps listeners on edge. Intensely satisfying. S.J.H. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine
APRIL 2022 - AudioFile
January LaVoy narrates a chilling audiobook, complete with ghosts, madness, and secrets. LaVoy channels Sylvia Wren, a world-famous, reclusive Arizona artist. Currently, she’s being hounded by a journalist who’s threatening to reveal her real identity: She is the heiress to the Chapel Firearms fortune, Iris Chapel. One-upping the reporter, Sylvia writes her own memoir, offering a disturbing look at her childhood, her domineering father, and her emotionally broken mother. LaVoy navigates the backstory smoothly, becoming each of the six doomed sisters and their Cassandra-like mother, who foresees “something terrible” for her daughters if they marry: “The Chapel sisters: First they get married; then they get buried.” LaVoy’s intimate breathy tones create the perfect gothic ambiance. Her delivery of the chilling details keeps listeners on edge. Intensely satisfying. S.J.H. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2022-01-26
From the author of Dietland (2015), a 1950s gothic, complete with a haunted mansion, a controlling older man, a bevy of dying girls, and a heroine who escapes.
Sylvia Wren, a rich and famous painter, has a secret: She’s actually Iris Chapel, heiress to the Chapel Firearms fortune, who escaped as her father was driving her to a psych ward 60 years earlier. When a journalist threatens to reveal her identity, Sylvia decides to take control of her own narrative by writing a memoir (this novel). Iris is the fifth of the six tragic Chapel sisters, born in the 1930s, all named for flowers, about whom the village children make up a rhyme: “The Chapel sisters: / first they get married / then they get buried.” The girls grow up in a gloomy Connecticut mansion nicknamed the wedding cake with a stern, traditional father and a cold mother, Belinda, who believes she’s haunted by the ghosts of people killed by Chapel guns. Their maternal grandmother, Rose, and Rose’s mother died in childbirth, traumas that echo down the generations in the form of an apparent curse. Again and again Belinda smells roses and announces that something terrible is going to happen—and soon after, it does. Typically, the “something terrible” takes the form of a Chapel sister having sex with a man for the first time, then shrieking, laughing, smashing a window, and dropping dead. Although this novel skips from the 1950s to the 2010s without engaging with the feminist movement of the 20th century that made freedom possible for artists like Sylvia, Walker makes it clear—through heavy-handed symbols and explicit thematic statements—that she considers this a feminist story. “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. One of the women who stands apart from the crowd,” Sylvia writes. She escapes her sisters’ fate by never having sex with a man (she’s a lesbian), by running away to New Mexico, by becoming an artist famous for vulvar flower paintings that sell for “an obscene amount of money.” (“In the world of The Cherry Robbers, Georgia O’Keeffe does not exist, and Sylvia Wren occupies (some of) that space,” Walker writes in an author’s note.)
Distinctly drawn characters make the book readable, but it lacks the ambiguity and intensity of really good gothics.
