Nico Walker : The man who preyed on federal banks!
I wonder sometimes , we just get the idea to read something, when we see that there is a movie coming up on it. The exact same thing happened to me, after watching the trailer of “Cherry”, I decided to give it the book a shot. A semi-autobiographical novel written in prison about a character who is both protagonist and antagonist made me actually feel what the desperation of addiction, loneliness and drugs can do to someone.
The term “ Cherry” is an army slang given to a new soldier who arrives in the combat zone but this story also refers to the man who is completely in-depth to all the situations happening in his life, a man who has the sense of his own mortality. He starts of being a college loser, nothing bright about him who sold drugs and get wasted everyday in bars and indulging in fights with his equally loser friends. His girlfriends weren’t happy with him and he was also surprised when his wife chose to fall in love with him even after knowing that he is a complete disaster. The story at this point becomes sincere when he tries to figure out about his wife’s compassion and her faith over him.
The story takes a complete 180 degree turn when he goes to Iraq to join the army, facing combats and the depths to which the war was affecting him and his fellow soldiers, to waking up to face less corpses of the friends and aspiring murders of the rebels. The story picks about the senselessness of the war and their after effects on the veterans who survived. The author returns back to his hometown only to find out the poor America who is suffering from opioid epidemic. To fund his desperation of drugs, he robs 10 American federal banks and was later arrested, writing his book from prison.
The entire story’s relationships have no meaning as the author doesn’t himself understand why they stay or fall apart and neither does he try to understand. Throughout the pages, there are series of drug experiences that after some time, the story becomes static and seeing the peril and doom in the life of our author makes the story steep down to boring but I feel at the same time that’s what makes it exceptional, the state of euphoria, that high running due to heroin addiction, his days at war in Iraq and more over knowing that he has PTSD but still choosing to let it go untreated giving it a effect that the author knows that a lesson and a fact of life is been repeated to him again and again, he understands it and yet he refuses to change. Initially being ridiculous in the first few chapters to the constant horror and high of the drugs and war, at the end it just becomes devastating which made it exceptional.
I personally feel that addiction if left uncured can cause serious damages to the person in both psychological and physical aspects. Let’s live in a world where we can share our feelings with at least one person, instead of being alone in this chaos.
