Nico Walker

Nico Walker talked food at Grub Street. There’s a fundraiser for Apogee Journal and Empowerment Avenue’s collaborative project Inside Out. At The Voice of Energy, talking ambient music with Green-House. Catapult published new fiction by Kate McKean. Bright Wall/Dark Room delved into the film adaptation of Kenneth Cook’s Wake in...

It’s been a month since the release of Cherry, the big-budget adaptation of Nico Walker’s debut novel-from-life about an Iraq veteran turned heroin addict turned bank robber. Incredibly, Cherry (the book), lauded as a “miracle of literary serendipity” and “epic and exhilarating, foul and touching,” was written while Walker was in prison, corresponding with Giancarlo DiTrapano and Matthew Johnson about edits. In an interview with Jacobin, Walker [noted] that he “taught [himself] way more in prison than [he’d] ever learned in school” as a tutor for the GED program, and singled out Dostoevsky as one of his teachers:

At Jacobin, author and former bank robber Nico Walker talks with Alex Press about his time as a medic in Iraq, his novel Cherry, and what he read while in prison: “The selection at Youngstown jail was not great; it was a lot of Louis L’Amour books and thrillers, which I didn’t really enjoy. But I chanced into a copy of The Idiot and saw how he balances a farce and a tragedy at the same time, and does these amazingly well-executed scenes where someone is showing their ass. The guy writes social awkwardness so well.”

Cherry is now streaming on Apple TV+. It stars Tom Holland as an Iraq war veteran committing a string of bank robberies to help fund a drug habit. The original novel that the film is based on was a semi-autobiographical work for author Nico Walker, so despite a few artistic liberties, the motions of the story mirror those of his own life.

Nico Walker is marching in circles around his house, thinking back on the time that someone tried to stab him with a pencil shank in prison. “Believe it or not, it was over algebra,” he says, elaborating that he was a GED tutor while incarcerated, teaching his fellow inmates, some of whom had short fuses. “He fuckin’ fortunately missed when he took the swipe, because he was trying to bury the motherfucker in me.”

For authors, having a book adapted into a movie might seem like a dream come true, and to a certain extent, it is. Most people don't mind a big paycheck, after all. But things get complicated when the book is autobiographical, or even just personal to the author. On the one hand, most stories are likely to reach a bigger audience on the silver screen; on the other hand, the director's choices might depart from the author's vision, rendering the new product unrecognizable. That's why authors (and readers) are often unhappy with the movies and TV shows based on their books. (But not always!)

The Russo brothers’ first post-Avengers cinematic foray, Cherry, is finally here. Starring Tom Holland in the lead role, the film tells the story of a broken-hearted young man who joins the army, returns from Afghanistan with PTSD, turns to heroin to cope, and then subsequently starts robbing banks to support his habit.

The movie adaptation of Nico Walker’s Cherry—the best-selling debut novel about an Iraq veteran turned heroin addict turned bank robber—will be released in theaters in two days, directed by the Russo Brothers (who you might know from Avengers) and starring Tom Holland (who you might know from Avengers). The auction for the film rights was hotly contested; the Russo Brothers’ production company beat out Warner Bros (with James Franco directing) and Sony. So one might expect that Walker picked the deal that most gelled with his artistic vision, right?

Tom Holland’s Nico Walker is Shady in New Cherry Clip. Apple TV+ has released a brand new clip from the Russo Brothers’ upcoming crime drama film Cherry, teasing the beginning of the love story between Tom Holland’s Nico Walker and Ciara Bravo’s Emily. The movie will arrive in select theaters on February 26, 2021, and globally on Apple TV+ on Friday, March 12, 2021. Check out the new video in the player below!

The Russo Brothers film adapted from Nico Walker's best-selling and critically acclaimed novel "Cherry" and filmed in Cleveland finally has a trailer and a release date. Written by Walker while serving time in federal prison, the book was a semi-autobiographical tale of his time in the army, his resulting PTSD, his spiral into painkiller addiction after returning to Cleveland, and the desperate string of bank robberies he committed afterward to feed his habit.