The Cherry Robbers

All at once a slow, sensual burn of a gothic novel and a subtle upending of gothic tropes. The story features a doomed family of six sisters all named for flowers, living like colorfully dressed prisoners in a house that is called the "wedding cake," who one by one go to their mysterious fates with only one sister remaining to tell the tale. As the narrator is an artist, the book is filled with lush, evocative images. It is mostly left to the reader to make of this what we will, but men certainly do not come off well in this novel. I highly enjoyed it.

The Cherry Robbers is a masterful, atmospheric work of historical fiction and gothic horror. The main character, Sylvia Wren, a reclusive, famous iconic American artist is writing her memoirs in 2017, recalling her early life in the 1950s. She was Iris Chapel, one of six sisters, heirs to a firearms fortune, with a controlling father and a disturbed, distant mother, living in a big mansion shaped like a wedding cake. Her two oldest sisters die within 24 hours of getting married, and one by one her other sisters meet a similar tragic fate.
Sarai creates a creeping sense of danger and suspense with her decadent, exquisite prose. The curse that afflicts the Chapel women ties in with female sexuality and the role of women in patriarchal show more 1950s society, their voices ignored and disregarded. The natural world (especially plants), violence against women, mental health, and the power of art are also important themes explored in this novel. The Cherry Robbers was incredibly well written and completely addictive. I loved it and was deeply affected by it. show less

I cannot emphasize how much I loved this book. Elements of a Gothic tale and ghost story, The Cherry Robbers chronicles the lives of six doomed sisters, and all but one survives to tell their fantastical story. Sarai Walker is a consummate writer, and what a delicious read this book is. As the end came in sight, I slowed my reading, not wanting it to end. Reminiscent of Shirley Jackson’s work and The Virgin Suicides, I highly, highly recommend this beauty of a novel. One of my favorite books I’ve read this year, or ever.

I haven’t read Sarai Walker’s first novel Dietland, nor watched the series based on it, but I know it has been described as “genre bending” and as “part-Fight Club, part feminist manifesto”. The Cherry Robbers shows the same enthusiasm for upending genre expectations to convey a strong feminist message. The novel is, in fact, a send-up of the Gothic novel which incorporates tropes of the genre even while comically subverting them.

The narrator and protagonist in The Cherry Robbers is eighty-year-old lesbian painter Sylvia Wren. After a career spent in and inspired by New Mexico and its landscape, Sylvia is a respected, well-known – and well-off – figure, even though she lives like a recluse and avoids publicity like a show more plague. And for good reason too. Sylvia has a well-kept secret. She is actually Iris Chapel, the second youngest of six daughters of an arms magnate, brought up in a palatial mansion in Connecticut. When a journalist threatens to reveal this early chapter in her life, Sylvia/Iris decides to face her past and write down her memories of childhood and youth.

Albeit largely left to their own devices by their distant father and their eccentric mother (prey to visions of the victims of weapons manufactured by the Chapel factories), the six sisters lead a privileged life in each other’s company. When the eldest daughter becomes engaged to a dashing young man, her mother entreats her to cancel the wedding, prophesying tragedy. Hardly anyone believes the mother’s rants, but tragedy does strike, in the most melodramatic of ways, after the wedding night. History keeps repeating itself for the other sisters, a sure sign that not only is the Chapel mansion haunted, but the family itself also seems struck by a curse. Will Iris manage to outrun it?

The Cherry Robbers reads like a version of The Virgin Suicides in which the voyeuristic male gaze of that novel’s rather morbid narrator is substituted with the voice of a feisty, self-deprecating, feminist heroine. Walker’s novel is best approached as a deliberately OTT creation, painted in garish colours, with little attempt at nuance. The central metaphor of the novel is hardly subtle. All the male suitors are cartoonish, cardboard figures. So are, up to a point, the Chapel sisters who readily sacrifice themselves to them. Yet, the novel is still successful in its combination of comedy and horror, providing a refreshing take on well-worn Gothic tropes.

3.5*

https://endsoftheword.blogspot.com/2021/09/the-cherry-robbers-by-sarai-walker.ht... show less

“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 of 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 show more 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 hypnotic as the reader follows the course of the Chapel sisters' lives with bated breath.

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 HarperCollins via Bookish First. This is an honest review. show less

I haven’t read Sarai Walker’s first novel Dietland, nor watched the series based on it, but I know it has been described as “genre bending” and as “part-Fight Club, part feminist manifesto”. The Cherry Robbers shows the same enthusiasm for upending genre expectations to convey a strong feminist message. The novel is, in fact, a send-up of the Gothic novel which incorporates tropes of the genre even while comically subverting them.

The narrator and protagonist in The Cherry Robbers is eighty-year-old lesbian painter Sylvia Wren. After a career spent in and inspired by New Mexico and its landscape, Sylvia is a respected, well-known – and well-off – figure, even though she lives like a recluse and avoids publicity like a show more plague. And for good reason too. Sylvia has a well-kept secret. She is actually Iris Chapel, the second youngest of six daughters of an arms magnate, brought up in a palatial mansion in Connecticut. When a journalist threatens to reveal this early chapter in her life, Sylvia/Iris decides to face her past and write down her memories of childhood and youth.

Albeit largely left to their own devices by their distant father and their eccentric mother (prey to visions of the victims of weapons manufactured by the Chapel factories), the six sisters lead a privileged life in each other’s company. When the eldest daughter becomes engaged to a dashing young man, her mother entreats her to cancel the wedding, prophesying tragedy. Hardly anyone believes the mother’s rants, but tragedy does strike, in the most melodramatic of ways, after the wedding night. History keeps repeating itself for the other sisters, a sure sign that not only is the Chapel mansion haunted, but the family itself also seems struck by a curse. Will Iris manage to outrun it?

The Cherry Robbers reads like a version of The Virgin Suicides in which the voyeuristic male gaze of that novel’s rather morbid narrator is substituted with the voice of a feisty, self-deprecating, feminist heroine. Walker’s novel is best approached as a deliberately OTT creation, painted in garish colours, with little attempt at nuance. The central metaphor of the novel is hardly subtle. All the male suitors are cartoonish, cardboard figures. So are, up to a point, the Chapel sisters who readily sacrifice themselves to them. Yet, the novel is still successful in its combination of comedy and horror, providing a refreshing take on well-worn Gothic tropes.

3.5*

https://endsoftheword.blogspot.com/2021/09/the-cherry-robbers-by-sarai-walker.ht... show less

The Cherry Robbers by Sarai Walker is a blend of Southern Gothic and historical fantasy that will appeal to fans of We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson or The Invisible Life of Addie Larue by V.E. Schwab. The story revolves around Sylvia, a reclusive artist with a mysterious past. She has become relatively well-known in art circles, but nobody knows who she was before she became an artist.

Here is an excerpt from Chapter 1 when Sylvia receives a disturbing letter from a journalist:

:"I'm wondering if any of this sounds familiar to you?
I laughed audibly, more like a scoff of confusion, alarm. Why would it be familiar to me? I'm Sylvia Wren, an artist who lives in Abiquiu, New Mexico. I was born and raised in Illinois and show more now I'm a New Mexican. I know nothing of New England. Or at least that's what I tell people.
But I kept reading the letter because Bellflower Village, the Popplewells, and the house in robin's-egg blue are not actually unknown to me - or rather to the person I used to be.
I don't mean to be coy, Ms. Wren, so let me get to the point: Mrs. Levasseur had a bit too much champagne at lunch and let slip that she knows a secret about you."

Soon after she receives the letter, Sylvia panics. Then, we are given a flashback to the 1950's when Sylvia and her sister, the Chapel sisters lived in a gorgeous house with their overbearing mother and father. The sisters long to get married so that they can leave the house. When the eldest Aster gets engaged, their mother has a horrible premonition that something will happen as a result of the wedding. The rest of the family ignore her, but something terrible does indeed happen. Is the family cursed? Are sinister forces are play, or is the real threat much closer to home?

Overall, The Cherry Robbers is a delightful, spooky Gothic novel. I couldn't put this book down. I ended up finishing it in a day. One highlight of this book is the pairing of beautiful descriptions of items of consumption with the creepy ghosts that haunt the family's mansion. It reminded me slightly of the horror of Crimson Peak, which is one of my favorite films, and the quirkiness of the film Penelope or the TV show Pushing Daisies. If you're intrigued by the excerpt above, or if you're a fan of Gothic novels like the works of Shirley Jackson, then I highly recommend that you check out this book when it comes out in May! show less