The Cherry Robbers
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4.1 • 27 Ratings
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
"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.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
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.
Customer Reviews
Amazing read
Very hard to put down! It has a very unique story