Grove Press
I Cheerfully Refuse
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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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Book Details
ISBN:
9780802162939
EAN:
9780802162939
Binding:
Hardcover
Pages:
336
Authors:
Leif Enger
Publisher:
Grove Press
Published Date: 2024-02-04
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Terrific read. The present and future of AI are woven throughout a complex human family narrative.Evoked numerous emotions in me
I knew nothing about Leif Enger when I read this book. What an incredible discovery!"I Cheerfully Refuse" is, to begin, the story of Rainier (Rainy) and his wife Lark, of a mysterious author named Molly Thorn with a missing manuscript; mainly of a couple and a community making do in a loving way in "fly-over country", in this case Michigan. We know that the US, and the world, have been depleted by climate change. Most of the people we encounter are at subsistence level, living off the land while (this part is not that heavily emphasized) coastal elites or "astronauts" exist in an entirely different reality. It's dystopia, but when you are living the dystopia, it's just life.Horrific violence and disruption intrudes, and Rainy begins a hero's journey, sailing across Lake Superior in a future that increasingly reveals itself as corrupt and merciless. Enger's writing is at once visceral and lyrical, poetic and gut-wrenching.I adored this book. It made me cry, it made me tense up, it made me angry, it made me smile. I didn't have any preconceptions as I haven't read Enger before (have the other books teed up but that's a long queue). If he reminds me of any writer, it would be Richard Powers: the beauty of the words, the keen sense of the importance and the fragility of nature; the relationship between environment and grief.One of my favorite books of the year.
Leif Enger takes you on an adventure and makes you fall in love with his characters every time.
like slipping on an old tattered coat, only to realize it is a portal to infinity. I have a feeling I will return to this book again and again.
I struggled reading this book. It confused me several chapters in. So I broke my rule of not reading reviews until I’ve finished a book. It was a mixed blessing. I learned I was reading a dsytopia story. Ugh. But the promise of lots of sailing & adventure encouraged me to finish this book. I didn’t even mind the dystopia parts!
