Sour Cherry
- Author Natalia Theodoridou
- Narrator Erifyli Gigante
- Publisher Headline
- Publish Date 1 April 2025
- Run Time 9 hours and 2 minutes
- Format Audio
- Genre Classic horror and ghost stories, Fairy and Folk tales, Feminism and feminist theory.
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What to expect
'An extraordinary, hallucinatory accomplishment' KAREN JOY FOWLER
'[A] reminder about what it means to be alive . . . with razor-sharp prose and diction so precise' MORGAN TALTY
'Read it and be changed' B. PLADEK
Something terrible has happened.
In a mysterious apartment filled with ghosts, our unnamed narrator attempts to explain this to her child - how do I talk about this? she wonders.
The truth must become something beautiful. We must begin with a fairy tale.
And so she begins to construct a beautiful fairy tale for her child - one that begins with a strange baby boy whose nails grow too fast and whose skin smells of soil. As he grows from a boy into a man, a plague seems to follow him everywhere. Tragedy strikes in cycles - and wife after wife, death after death, plague after plague, every woman he touches becomes a ghost. These ghosts call out desperately to our narrator as she tries to explain, in the very real world, exactly what has happened to her.
And they all agree on one thing, an inescapable truth about this man, this powerful lord who has loved them and led them each to ruin:
If you leave, you die. But if you die, you stay.
A debut novel as emotionally poignant as it is fiercely smart, Sour Cherry is an arresting debut examining toxic masculinity through its chorus of women - deconstructing the idea of what makes someone a monster.
'[A] reminder about what it means to be alive . . . with razor-sharp prose and diction so precise' MORGAN TALTY
'Read it and be changed' B. PLADEK
Something terrible has happened.
In a mysterious apartment filled with ghosts, our unnamed narrator attempts to explain this to her child - how do I talk about this? she wonders.
The truth must become something beautiful. We must begin with a fairy tale.
And so she begins to construct a beautiful fairy tale for her child - one that begins with a strange baby boy whose nails grow too fast and whose skin smells of soil. As he grows from a boy into a man, a plague seems to follow him everywhere. Tragedy strikes in cycles - and wife after wife, death after death, plague after plague, every woman he touches becomes a ghost. These ghosts call out desperately to our narrator as she tries to explain, in the very real world, exactly what has happened to her.
And they all agree on one thing, an inescapable truth about this man, this powerful lord who has loved them and led them each to ruin:
If you leave, you die. But if you die, you stay.
A debut novel as emotionally poignant as it is fiercely smart, Sour Cherry is an arresting debut examining toxic masculinity through its chorus of women - deconstructing the idea of what makes someone a monster.
Critics Review
Natalia Theodoridou's novel Sour Cherry delivers its story - the gentle truth or reminder about what it means to be alive, what it means to feel - with razor-sharp prose and diction so precise it is impossible to misunderstand. Reading Sour Cherry did not remind me of great writers. No. It was like I discovered a new one. 'Masterwork' is used so often when discussing a book, and so I'm not going to say it's a masterwork: Sour Cherry is diamond work, a treasure chest filled with objects from another world but made familiar to any reader. Only a standout, talented writer can pull this off. Sour Cherry is a remarkable novel, and one I will never forget.
A murder ballad sung in a dark room - it's slow, haunting and strangely beautiful . . . Theodoridou's lyrical prose takes otherwise disposable lines and turns them into poetry . . . this hallucinatory novel is a sad, violent, horrible delight.
If you love Kelly Link, Angela Carter, and Carmen Maria Machado, then Natalia Theodoridou is your new favorite author. Sour Cherry is a hell of an impressive debut. Subversive, haunting, fantastical but all too real and relevant.
Masterfully crafted . . . Like a magic eye picture, Sour Cherry is a horror or thriller when viewed at one angle but, tilted ever so slightly, it's a myth, legend or bedtime story. It's a tale of buried pain personified as a curse, a beast, a pestilence that follows the family, the bloodline. The fairy tale style only serves to make the truths within it truer. Beautiful and harrowing . . . With a writing style that had me mesmerised from the first page, Theodoridou has an amazing talent for storytelling that's so effective that the ending - while predictable and maybe even unavoidable - still stunned me and moved me to tears.
This gorgeous book will enthrall you like a spell that you cannot nor will you wish to escape. An extraordinary, hallucinatory accomplishment.
A folktale, a whisper, and a dream all at once, Theodoridou's debut is beautifully told in rhythmic, singing prose. Sour Cherry is unforgettable - one of my absolute favorites of the year.
A Bluebeard retelling of profound beauty and wisdom, Sour Cherry shows us how abuse traps people in stories that help them excuse it - but also survive. Theodoridou is a novelist with a poet's ear and a playwright's nose for irony. His prose is lyric, yet exquisitely controlled: every word feels necessary and inevitable. Like Angela Carter, he uses fairy tale to trace the dark undercurrents of human desire. But Sour Cherry transcends the form of the fairy tale retelling. It moves like a dance, resonates like a chorus; you wake from it as from a dream. Read it and be changed.
Haunting . . . simmers with dark enchantment and Gothic menace . . . The language is atmospheric and surprising . . . the characters are inventive in chronicling nested fairy tales and unsettling metamorphoses.
Unputdownable and haunting . . . In his thrilling debut, Natalia Theodoridu asks: Why and how do bad men wield power over their victims, over bystanders, over the stories we tell ourselves? How is violence justified? I didn't want to put this book down, and now that I've turned the last page, I'll be haunted by it forever.
Gorgeously written and stunningly good.
Sour Cherry is a song you think you've heard before, but never in this voice. This story knows how dreadful longing is, and how cruel hope, how loving and being loved makes monsters. With bitter irony and utter, intoxicating sincerity in every sentence, Theodoridou opens the body of an old story with a knife, and makes of it a house for you to be haunted in. A magnificent novel and, unbelievably, a debut - you must read this as soon as you can.
A scorching ghost story . . . This dark allegory will linger in readers' minds.
Captivating from the first page to the last, Sour Cherry is a haunting novel that weighs in with Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, The Turn of the Screw and the very best of Angela Carter - but Theodoridou writes with a magnetic strangeness that is all his own. Not many can pull off what he has, bringing new blood to folktale archetypes, blending mystery with a burgeoning, inevitable dread. Heartbreaking and tender, Sour Cherry is a dark delight. It's so damn good I'm already looking forward to reading it again.
A modern fable masterpiece.
Theodoridou's prose is precise and impressively controlled, often horrific and dark . . . Bluebeard may seem to be all over the literary landscape these days, but I'm pretty sure you've never seen one quite like this.
Atmospheric . . . a Bluebeard's Wife-esque fairy tale horror that questions monstrosity, masculinity, romance, and power . . . deeply affecting and unsettling.
Haunting and unforgettable.
Sour Cherry is an ambitious gothic story that doesn't rely on the novelty of being a Bluebeard retelling to remain interesting. Between lush prose and textured characters, it kept my attention.
Wholly original and really gorgeous.
A vicious, beautiful piece of work that will cling to you like a ghost.
If Angela Carter and Carmen Maria Machado were trapped in House of Leaves, you'd be holding this book in your hands.
Theodoridou's prose is beautiful . . . past and present, fairytale and reality, are woven together so tightly that the weave is impossible to pick apart.
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