I Cheerfully Refuse
NATIONAL BESTSELLER - A BARNES & NOBLE BOOK CLUB PICK - A career defining tour-de-force from New York Times bestselling, award-winning and "formidably gifted" (Chicago Tribune) author of Peace Like a River Leif Enger.
"A rare, remarkable book to be kept and reread--for its beauty of language, its gentle wisdom and its steady, unflagging hope." -- Laurie Hertzel, Minneapolis Star Tribune
A storyteller "of great humanity and huge heart" (Minneapolis Star Tribune), Leif Enger debuted in the literary world with Peace Like a River which sold over a million copies and captured readers' hearts around the globe. Now comes a new milestone in this boldly imaginative author's accomplished, resonant body of work. Set in a not-too-distant America, I Cheerfully Refuse is the tale of a bereaved and pursued musician embarking
under sail on a sentient Lake Superior in search of his departed, deeply beloved, bookselling wife. Rainy, an endearing bear of an Orphean narrator, seeks refuge in the harbors, fogs and remote islands of the inland sea. Encountering lunatic storms and rising corpses from the warming depths, Rainy finds on land an increasingly desperate and illiterate people, a malignant billionaire ruling class, crumbled infrastructure and a lawless society. Amidst the Gulliver-like challenges of life at sea and no safe landings, Rainy is lifted by physical beauty, surprising humor, generous strangers, and an unexpected companion in a young girl who comes aboard. And as his innate guileless nature begins to make an inadvertent rebel of him, Rainy's private quest for the love of his life grows into something wider and wilder, sweeping up friends and foes alike in his strengthening wake.
I Cheerfully Refuse epitomizes the "musical, sometimes magical and deeply satisfying kind of storytelling" (Los Angeles Times) for which Leif Enger is cherished. A rollicking narrative in the most evocative of settings, this latest novel is a symphony against despair and a rallying cry for the future.
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Community Reviews
Now, to the book: The dystopian aspects can be depressing in today's world. With the climate changing, increasing income inequality, a population that doesn't see what is happening as they elevate billionaires, book banning ... well, it can be dreary to consider a world where people are losing hope.
As people lose hope, some choose to take the Willow - a drug that leads them to a better world, not phrasing it as suicide, but as going in search of better, to see if another world exists. Well, that's not all that far off from some of our current religions, which promise us a heaven after death, although they also make suicide a sin so that you can't get to heaven if you hasten your departure.
When Rainy's wife is brutally murdered, he has a choice. He basically loses it, and flees his wife's murderer, taking to Lake Superior aiming for the place he believes that would be the one place on earth that Lark could reappear after death. He sets out on this quest, occasionally finding help, but usually having people betray his location to the villains - not surprising given people's suspicions of others and the villain's "persuasive" powers. He picks up the aptly named Sol, who is a nuisance and a joy, so - a 9 year old girl.
In the end, of course, (this being a book that people want to read), justice is delivered and Rainy has found that even after losing everything, he can find friends, family, community, and meaning again.
Overall, I very much enjoyed this, frankly because I went through a period of loss (different but still devastating) and went on a land journey and made a home in a new place.
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