Nico Walker, author of Cherry—written during his decade-long incarceration—discusses how Knopf’s 2018 novel, adapted into a Tom Holland-led Apple TV+ film, diverged from its raw, prison-born origins. A former medic deployed to Iraq in late 2005 with the 4th Infantry Division after just 14 weeks of training, Walker reflects on his military service and release in October 2019 amid pandemic lockdowns, framing his work as a testament to resilience despite Hollywood’s sanitized take. The conversation blends gritty realism with sharp wit, challenging expectations of both war narratives and literary adaptations. [Automatically generated summary]
It might sound like I'm leaving you a voicemail, but actually, I'm alerting you to a special episode.
My name is Brace.
This, of course, is the True and On podcast hosted by myself, Liz Franczak, and Young Chopsky.
And today is an interview with Nico Walker, who wrote the book Cherry.
And yeah, I think we should just rev up the engines and drive into the garage, shut the door, start the engine once again, and just drift off.
Welcome to NPR's The Book Firing Line, where we take one author every week, put them up against the wall, and put a bullet in their fucking brain.
With us today, we have Nico Walker.
Nico, how you doing?
I'm doing well, Brace.
Thank you for having me.
Of course.
Nico, I think for those, so Nico wrote a book called Fucking Cherry.
They made a fucking movie out of it, blah, blah, blah.
For those who, we did a survey, and 95% of our audience hasn't read not only a book, but even the back of a cereal carton.
And so, what's your deal?
Where are you from?
What are you doing here?
Why are you on the show?
Why Join the Army?00:03:32
Okay, yeah.
I wrote a book called Cherry.
I wrote it in prison.
I guess that was kind of the thing that they really sold it on.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, yeah.
I was in prison in Kentucky for long, for pretty much all the last decade.
It was released, half-release in October of 2019.
Got out of the halfway house just in time for the pandemic, the big lockdown.
Yeah, no, I was very lucky though.
Got the book published with Knopf.
Came out in August of 2018.
Was picked up for, I guess, the film rights, would you say, were picked up and was turned into a major motion picture is being released right now, I suppose, streaming on Apple TV Plus.
You know, shout out to Apple.
Thanks for everything.
Thanks for the memories.
But anyway, yes, it's a trip, though.
You know, got Tom Holland, Spider-Man.
He's the star.
Listen, I don't know.
I saw that.
I saw the preview.
I got to say, doesn't look like I read the book.
Doesn't exactly look a lot like the book.
Tom Holland looks exactly like you.
So they got that part down.
But something I found kind of interesting is they had, it's like, it's kind of like painted as like a war movie in some parts.
And like you were in, you were in the army, right?
You were in the Iraq war.
That's awesome.
And you were a medic.
That's true.
Why would you become a medic?
Because you don't necessarily, to me, you know, far be it from me to judge a book by its cover.
You don't exactly look like a medical man.
Is that right?
I don't know.
It seemed like the best job you could have, I guess.
You know, it was like, I'm not good with mechanical things.
So I ruled out anything like that.
I'm kind of soft.
I'm not really, you know, I'm not much of a killer, so I couldn't really do that.
And it seemed like an all right thing to do also.
It's colorblind.
Yeah.
I'm colorblind.
Yeah, it was the job that you could have if you were colorblind.
You could be a healthcare specialist.
I signed up as a healthcare specialist in all fairness.
You know, people are like, what were you thinking?
You're crazy.
I mean, I thought, I don't know, I pictured something like a hospital.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Walter Reed, you know, maybe someplace in Germany, nine to five.
Pharmacist.
So, yeah, whatever, you name it.
But anyway, ended up going through my medical training, 14 weeks of medical training.
So that's plenty of time to learn everything that you would need to know.
And I was told to go overseas.
You know, I got done with training and got my orders for 4th Infantry Division when I was still in medical, what, medic school in San Antonio.
And they were the next division going to Iraq.
So I became a medic, got done with training, and then a month and a half later I was deployed to Iraq.
So, yeah, I got to the Middle East right after Thanksgiving of 2005.