In her first novel, Chandra Mayor pulls her readers into Winnipeg’s early-1990s skinhead scene, compelling them to follow an unnamed protagonist through city streets whose names come to represent a series of struggles for survival and identity. Mayor constructs a world where friendships and relationships become a lifeline in an endless series of days spent in the turmoil of drugs and temporary housing. Yet even relationships are tricky and unreliable: in the book’s central relationship, the young protagonist struggles against logic to stay with an occasionally violent boyfriend with a talent for apologetic love notes.

Two elements are particularly striking about Cherry. First is Mayor’s use of vivid poetic language to construct the bleak landscape of the city. Second is her refusal to judge her characters or oversimplify the world they inhabit. The best proof of this is her handling of the enigmatic character Tom. Allowing the reader to be charmed alongside the novel’s protagonist also allows us to share in her disquiet upon discovering a “little blue swastika” on his right earlobe.

Mayor inserts newspaper clippings, photographs, and letters as tangible signposts throughout the text. However, it is the protagonist’s own voice that proves the most compelling aspect of the novel; the artifacts are merely distracting. It is a credit to Mayor’s writing that the reader feels inclined to skip over them and continue on through the story, treating them, perhaps, as placemarkers for subsequent readings.