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I Cheerfully Refuse Kindle Edition
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.
- SpracheEnglisch
- PublisherGrove Press
- Publication dateApril 2, 2024
- File size3712 KB
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What scares me is the notion we are all one rotten moment, one crushed hope or hollow stomach from stuffing someone blameless in a cage.335 Kindle readers highlighted thisPopular highlight
It’s taken all my life to learn protection is the promise you can’t make. It sounds absolute, and you mean it and believe it, but that vow is provisional and makeshift and no god ever lived who could keep it half the time.268 Kindle readers highlighted thisPopular highlight
“You’re a man who stops and listens. If that’s not the definition of friendship, it’s close enough for now.”259 Kindle readers highlighted thisPopular highlight
Lark’s theory of angels was that they are us and we mostly don’t remember.198 Kindle readers highlighted thisPopular highlight
Did I understand it? Not by half, but when it thunders you know your chest is shaking.160 Kindle readers highlighted this
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Editorial Reviews
Review
Barnes & Noble's April Book Club Pick
An April Indie Next Pick
An Amazon Top 10 Editors Pick for the Month of April
A Most Anticipated Book of 2024 from Literary Hub
"The sweetest apocalyptic novel yet . . . Nobody describes profound joy or “blazing love” with such infectious abandon as Enger, and it’s a pleasure to be back under his influence . . . But be forewarned: Maniacal forces looming in the shadows of this novel will not stay in abeyance for long . . . In his previous novels, Enger may have whistled past the cemetery, but this time he’s digging deeper and even dancing with the bones . . . Enger casts this adventure as an Orphean quest, but once Rainy takes on a young sidekick who’s also on the lam, the enterprise feels like 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn' reconceived by Cormac McCarthy.” — Ron Charles, Washington Post
"Stunning, almost pitch-perfect, with a harrowing tale and beguiling characters . . . with all its tragedy and darkness, this novel is not depressing; it feels buoyant . . . 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
“As readable as anything [Enger] has written, [I Cheerfully Refuse] refreshingly concerns itself less with the miraculous than with what is right before our eyes, even when we want to look away . . . In Mr. Enger's hands Lake Superior becomes a character of its own: beautiful, tempestuous, a vast chasm between two nations . . . An accomplishment that is beacon enough." — Michael O'Donnell, Wall Street Journal
“An unusual and meaningful surprise awaits readers of Enger’s latest, which takes place largely on Lake Superior, as a man named Rainy tries to reunite with his beloved wife, Lark . . . [Enger’s] retelling of Orpheus (who went to the underworld to rescue his wife) contains the authentic hope of a born optimist.” — Los Angeles Times
“In a rickety sailboat on storm-tossed Lake Superior, a grieving musician flees a powerful enemy . . . Leif Enger’s latest novel steers a harrowing course through a broken world. Yes, it’s grim, but in Enger’s capable hands it’s also a riveting story of resilience and kinship.” —Christian Science Monitor, “10 Best New Books of April”
“Enger's modern epic follows Rainy, a musician in an environmentally and politically dystopian future . . . The story clearly borrows from the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, in which an enchanting lyre player follows his wife into Hades, but [Rainy's] larger-than-life misadventures also evoke Odysseus, Don Quixote, and Gulliver. It’s a book that loves books . . . and the many literary references underscore a timely theme: the vital, transformative power of books, especially as weapons against willful ignorance.” — Bustle
“[I Cheerfully Refuse] evolves into a retelling of the Orpheus myth, leavened with a healthy dose of the Odyssey, and told in the tradition of the American ballad with the aesthetic sensibilities of Amor Towles . . . Indeed, Enger, like Towles, is one of those writers who make the process seem easy (though you know it’s not), as if the Leif Enger project itself is to make the lyrical seem everyday . . . Leif Enger’s books are about grief, but they are also about the life that beauty can provide if you’re brave enough to sit with it.” —WORLD
“[I Cheerfully Refuse] is chockful of wistful melancholy, sad wisdom, shadowed sunshine, lambent darkness, and salvaged treasures . . . The true triumph that drives the book is Rainy’s first-person voice . . . Carried along by this empathetic and lovable voice, the reader will endure privation and threats with equanimity, and receive the moments of jubilation and reward with joy . . . Rainy's hegira offers love and hate, frustration and catharsis in equal measure.” — Paul Di Filippo, Locus Magazine
“An affecting story of love, loss and loyalty that’s also a colorful and deeply imagined tale of maritime adventure and survival . . . Some night, when the wind rattles the shutters and raindrops pelt the windows, curl up with this good-hearted novel and imagine yourself sharing a rickety sailboat with Rainy and Sol. You’ll be guaranteed a rewarding journey.” — Bookreporter
"The transcendent latest from Enger (Peace Like a River) is at once a dystopian love story, a nautical adventure, and a meditation on loss, kindness, and natural beauty . . . This captivating narrative brims with hope.” — Publishers Weekly, starred review
"Magnificent . . . Comet-bright and eloquent, I Cheerfully Refuse is a perfect novel that treats dystopian circumstances as transient so long as literacy remains.” — Foreword Reviews, starred review
"The novel’s ruined world, marked by book burnings, anti-intellectual sentiment, environmental disruption and casual brutality, will feel entirely too plausible for readers. Yet within its dystopian landscape, Enger’s story incorporates a strain of fabulism . . . Like turbulent Lake Superior, I Cheerfully Refuse is filled with polarities that should contradict but somehow, instead, cohere: hopeless moments infused with light and shocking acts of cruelty depicted through beautiful, memorable prose. Although the struggle to survive leaves room for little else, Rainy still finds delight in simple, ordinary things: the post-storm sun or a ripe tomato. It’s in these moments of earnest wonder that I Cheerfully Refuse is most compelling, like the brief but glorious clearing of a tempestuous sky.” — BookPage, starred review
"There’s both a playfulness and a seriousness of purpose to the latest from the Minnesota novelist, a spirit of whimsy that keeps hope flickering even in times of darkest despair.” — Kirkus Reviews
"Enger's prose is beautiful to behold." — Booklist
"[Enger] has a knack for tackling difficult, troubled subjects and yet claiming a hopeful optimism as our right. Enger does it again with this picaresque tale set in a near-future America.” — Parade
"Part sea adventure, part thriller, with a little magic along the way. It’s a love letter to bookstores, to reading, and to hope in a dark world, told in the lush prose we expect from the author of Peace Like a River." — St. Paul Pioneer Press
"This harrowing, but beautifully told, tale is a sly paean to books, language, love and the transformative power of receiving and extending kindness. I cheerfully endorse it.” — Erin Kodicek, Senior Editor at Amazon specializing in Literary Fiction
“A book that reads like music, both battle hymn and love song for our world. A true epic—heartbreaking, terrifyingly prophetic, but above all, radically hopeful.” — Violet Kupersmith, author of Build Your House Around My Body
“A heart-racing ballad of escape, shot-through with villainy and dignity, humor and music. Like Mark Twain, Enger gives us a full accounting of the human soul, scene by scene, wave by wave.” — Josh Ritter, singer and author of The Great Glorious Goddamn of It All
Praise for Virgil Wander
“Enger deserves to be mentioned alongside the likes of Richard Russo and Thomas McGuane. Virgil Wander is a lush crowd-pleaser about meaning and second chances and magic.”— New York Times Book Review
“[Virgil Wander] brings out the charm and downright strangeness of the defiantly normal.” ― Wall Street Journal
“Enger is a writer to be appreciated by anyone who cares about words.” — Seattle Times
Praise for Peace Like a River
“Here is an author we can trust and who we are willing to follow anywhere. Enger strikes just the right balance of instinctive storytelling, narrative play and pretty prose.” — San Francisco Chronicle
“Book lovers inclined to complain that novelists don’t write gripping yarns anymore would do well to pick up a copy of Peace Like a River, a compelling blend of traditional and artfully offbeat storytelling . . . a miracle well worth witnessing.”—Boston Globe
“The narrative picks up power and majesty, then thunders to a tragic, yet joyous, climax.” — People
“Gripping… Filled with sharp prose and vividly realized scenes, [Peace Like a River] has the makings of that rarest commodity: the literate bestseller.” — Minneapolis Star Tribune
“Enger is a masterful storyteller . . . possessed of a seemingly effortless facility for the stiletto-sharp drawing of wholly believable characters.” — Chicago Tribune
About the Author
Leif Enger grew up in Osakis, Minnesota, and worked as a reporter for Minnesota Public Radio before writing his bestselling debut novel Peace Like a River, which won the Booksense Award for Fiction and was named one of the Year's Best Books by Time Magazine and the Los Angeles Times. His second novel, So Brave, Young, and Handsome, was also a national bestseller. It was a Midwest Booksellers Honor Book, and won the High Plains Book Award for Fiction. His third novel Virgil Wander was longlisted for the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, and was named a best book of the year by Amazon, Library Journal, Bookpage, and Chicago Public Library. He lives with his wife in Duluth, MN.
Product details
- ASIN : B0CH1NHWNW
- Publisher : Grove Press (April 2, 2024)
- Publication date : April 2, 2024
- Language : English
- File size : 3712 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 322 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #40,189 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #397 in Dystopian Science Fiction (Kindle Store)
- #437 in Dystopian Fiction (Books)
- #897 in Literary Fiction (Kindle Store)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Leif Enger worked as a reporter and producer for Minnesota Public Radio for nearly twenty years before leaving to write fiction full-time. He lives in Minnesota with his wife Robin.
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonCustomers say
Customers find the characters compelling and interesting. They describe the tone as hopeful, lyrical, and dystopian. Readers also find the book wonderful and interesting, with beautiful writing. Overall, they find the writing style beautiful and stripped down to the basics.
AI-generated from the text of customer reviews
Customers find the tone hopeful, lyrical, and dark, with plenty of grim moments. They also describe the book as a great work of fiction, dystopian adventure, and literary.
"...It's just a beautiful story. Let Rainy take your hand and lead you to the light." Read more
"...Well developed characters, only somewhat dystopian future (feels just a few bad decisions away from where we are now) and interesting world...." Read more
"Leif Enger writes beautifully and this is a very depressing book." Read more
"...four stars almost from the start, however, the story occasionally bogs down towards the middle and also towards the end, reason why I settled for a..." Read more
Customers find the writing style beautiful, eloquent, perfectly descriptive, thoughtful, and musical. They also say the book paints vivid scenes with musical brushstrokes and is easy to read.
"...It's stripped down to the basics and helps you find joy in the simple things. It's optimistic and hopeful even amid tragedy, and... atmospheric...." Read more
"...This fast paced narrative is easy to read and solid four stars almost from the start, however, the story occasionally bogs down towards the middle..." Read more
"...Rainy’s adventures while sailing the boat are many and detailed with both menace and beauty...." Read more
"Leif Enger writes beautifully and this is a very depressing book." Read more
Customers find the book wonderful, unforgettable, and great by any standards. They also say it helps them find joy in simple things.
"...It's stripped down to the basics and helps you find joy in the simple things. It's optimistic and hopeful even amid tragedy, and... atmospheric...." Read more
"...The descriptions are very visual, the characters colorful, crisp and interesting; they sound like people one would love to know...." Read more
"...(feels just a few bad decisions away from where we are now) and interesting world. Highly recommend." Read more
"...of my favorite authors, and much of the prose in this book was thoroughly rewarding...." Read more
Customers find the characters in the book compelling.
"...The descriptions are very visual, the characters colorful, crisp and interesting; they sound like people one would love to know...." Read more
"...The setting itself is a character; I’ve never felt such an unremitting sea that delivers like a determined antagonist, pushing up against a..." Read more
"...Well developed characters, only somewhat dystopian future (feels just a few bad decisions away from where we are now) and interesting world...." Read more
"...is a genuinely enjoyable human being to read, and the villain of the piece is interesting..." Read more
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Against this dark backdrop of inequality, hard-scrabble life, crumbling society, and an earth clinging tenuously to survival, we meet Rainy as he reminisces about his life with Lark and what led to him sailing around Lake Superior in search of her.
Rainy (short for Rainier) is a big, gentle bear of a man who is totally devoted to his wife and their life together. There's such a sweetness and gentleness between Rainy and Lark. This is a romance for the ages against a dark landscape.
Rainy meets Lark after basically stalking her when she was a librarian. Thanks to Lark, Rainy discovers the joy of books and the worlds to be found within them.
And Rainy falls almost instantly in love with Lark just by her voice, her kindness, the way she can intuitively tell what a person needs and make the perfect book recommendation for them. His love for her grows through the years, as does their respect and care of one another.
Rainy is friends with a local bar owner (where Rainy often plays bass guitar) known simply as Labrino, a rather melancholy guy. "Still, it was good he knocked at all. There were times Labrino was so melancholy he couldn't bring himself to raise his knuckles, and then he might stand motionless on the back step until one of us noticed he was there."
But he is also a man of grit and endurance. And thanks to Labrino, we have one of my favorite scenes from the book when Lark arrives home to find her husband soothingly playing guitar for Labrino.
"He grinned-- a wide grin, at which Lark danced back into the kitchen and held out her hand. Labrino took it and got up and followed her lead. She whisked him about, I kept playing, and Labrino kept losing the steps and then finding them again-- it was good to see him prance around like a man revived. By the time I brought the tune to a close Labrino was out of breath and scarcely noticed as Lark snagged his coat and lay it over his shoulders. With genuine warmth she thanked him for coming and suggested dinner next week, then he was out the door and turning back to smile as he went."
Lark is so empathetic, so intuitive and kind-hearted, and she knows just how to give someone what they need in that moment.
And then Lark brings home a stray by the name of Kellan who she's taken on as a room boarder. Lark describes him as "Enigmatic. Obscure." Rainy describes Kellan as having a "kid brother quality" and "plucky doomed optimism" that made you want "to take care of him". And Kellan needs someone to take care of him. He is running from his past and needs the soft landing that Rainy and Lark offer him for a time.
The idyllic life that Rainy and Lark have built together is shattered, leaving Rainy living on the shifting winds of Lake Superior aboard the boat Flower.
The author is a skilled wordsmith and this story is well-crafted prose, creating a world that is equal amounts beauty and tragedy. Nature and nature's beauty is a recurring theme, as well as her indiscriminate wrath. I noted how even many of the character's names have the earthy feel of nature to them (i.e. Rainier/Rainy, Lark, Sol/Sun, Thorn, Beezie, and even the boat's name Flower).
But there is also a darkness in this dying world where you can find both the best and the worst of humanity. "What scares me is the notion we are all one rotten moment, one crushed hope or hollow stomach from stuffing someone blameless in a cage."
My final word: This book is "simple" in the very best meaning of the word. It's stripped down to the basics and helps you find joy in the simple things. It's optimistic and hopeful even amid tragedy, and... atmospheric. You get the sense that Rainy and Lark were destined; their love was written in the stars.
"Yet we were also, as Lark liked to whisper in the dark, quixotes, by which she meant not always sensible. Open to the wondrous. Curious in the manner of those lucky so far."
And you learn through their story that sometimes things have to get really dark for you to see the light. It's just a beautiful story. Let Rainy take your hand and lead you to the light.
In a not-so distant future, after cycles of floods, droughts, famine, and societal collapse, Rainier “Rainy” and Lark are a happy couple who live two blocks away from Lake Superior, Michigan, in the town of Icebridge. Rainy is a part-time bass musician, and Lark co-owns a bakery/bookstore. Occasionally they rent their attic to itinerant travelers, and is one of those—an indentured servant escapee from a medicine ship who is on his way to Canada— who brings trouble to their door, for this young “squelette”, as those escaped servants are commonly referred to, has stolen valuable goods from a very ruthless man. Rainy’s odyssey across Lake Superior escaping his pursuers aboard a boat—on his way back to his wife— will make him cross paths with an assortment of characters who will make him recover hope and believe in love again.
This fast paced narrative is easy to read and solid four stars almost from the start, however, the story occasionally bogs down towards the middle and also towards the end, reason why I settled for a 3.5* rating. This first person narrative jumps right into the action, with no preamble, no information dump. The descriptions are very visual, the characters colorful, crisp and interesting; they sound like people one would love to know. Even the villains have depth.
I Cheerfully Refuse is a dystopian novel with a lot of darkness but also inspiring feats of heroism and survival. A novel within a novel, set in a world where books are rare as a consequence of being vilified, banned, and burned en-masse, this novel is an ode to books and reading, to the power of friendship and storytelling, and the power of love and hope to heal all wounds.
A tighter editing focusing on reducing the amount of nautical terms would have done wonders for this book. It’s a pity I had to subtract from its overall rating. Despite its heavy topics, I found I Cheerfully Refuse very entertaining and enjoyable.