Constant Reader discussion

Today we're kicking off our discussion of I Cheerfully Refuse. I nominated it because it left me with many powerful feelings, as well as questions, after I read it last summer or fall. I was intrigued by Enger's ability to imagine a time in the unspecified future after an also unspecified catastrophe of national (or perhaps global) proportions. I read I Cheerfully Refuse prior to the 2024 elections, and it gave me troubling insights into where we might be heading if we can't heal the divisions that have developed in our country.

Enger's previous books have garnered significant acclaim for his writing style and ability to capture a midwestern lifestyle. I read Peace Like a River many years ago when it was an "All Iowa Reads" selection, but I don't think I've read any others of his. I have limited time right now to do a full introduction, but I'll provide more on the author's background as soon as I can.

This book appealed to me a lot because I'm also a Midwesterner and familiar with the Lake Superior locations that are featured in the story line. I can believe that at some point in the future power and wealth will be concentrated on the coasts and that the infrastructure in the middle of the country (long considered to be "fly over land") would be allowed to crumble. How did those of you who aren't as familiar with this part of the country relate to the location? Did you imagine similar things happening in other places at the same time?

I picture the time frame of the book as being 30 - 50 years in the future, because there are still some people alive who recall the "time before", but it's clear that it wasn't just a few years prior. When did you think it was occurring, and what clues gave you that idea?

Here's the bio information from Enger's website:

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.

And a summary of I Cheerfully Refuse, also from his website:

A story-teller “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.

Sounds wonderful. I'll start reading right away.

I read this last year too--liked it a lot. Of course my memory is always questionable, but it is interesting to me that you said, "a time in the unspecified future after an also unspecified catastrophe of national (or perhaps global) proportions." Did I ever ponder if this was global? Everything was happening so fast, I don't believe I did.

I clearly remember how completely right his depictions of conditions and people in this future world felt. Your guess of 30-50 years from now feels spot on. This discussion will make me want to reread it, even tho it feels too soon. And I just started another crazy long book I'm not ready to abandon.

Funny, I picture the coast possibly a concentration of power and wealth, but crumbled and inhospitable. The interior on the other hand, with its lakes, forests and plains are still less populated but coveted for their pure, fresh air living spaces.

I also read this when it first came out, and I decided to not reread it. You know why, "So many books, so little time."

I remember feeling uneasy as I read the story. I am looking forward to following the discussion. I hope that it refreshes my memory.

At first I was enchanted by this book, especially the beauty of the language. In fact, I was taking notes just to capture some of the words. But the beautiful language tapered off after Rainy fled and events became increasingly unsettling. This was not going to be the book I thought it was going to be. When Rainy was banged into prison, I slammed the book shut. I just couldn't take the pure malevolent hopelessness of it all. But I returned to finish the next day.

On thing I wondered about was the fading away of that beautiful writing. What do you guys think? Did Enger do it purposely to increase the angst? Or did he just find it impossible to write beautifully about death, betrayal, torture and destruction?

Hello. This is my first time to read with Constant Reader and my first time to read I Cheerfully Refuse (love that title).

I just finished chapter 4, "when a flame is lit, move toward it," and wanted to chirp how delightful it is--describing a new reader who devours all sorts of stories and even sympathetically goes blind in one eye when he read about Odin, lol.

He describes his experiences with poetry as, "when it thunders, you know your chest is shaking." I must remember that quote.

I was a little thrown by several book references but Google sorted me out (The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break) but I think I might have got bamboozled by the result of The Undead Life of Molly Thorn. I think Lark's Molly Thorn is not a character, but the author, and not a "real" one, not in 2025 anyway.

I almost cried when I read about the mistrust of text, and the election of the "proudly illiterate president, A MAN UNSPOILT..." because it does not seem all that implausible, if not already a tragic fact.

That's all I wanted to share for now. I'll be back. ❤️

Ruth wrote: "But the beautiful language tapered off after Rainy fled and events became increasingly unsettling. This was not going to be the book I thought it was going to be. ..."

I know what you mean, Ruth and Jane. I was worried for the safety of characters I cared about during much of the later portion of the book. In fact, I will admit to checking out the ending at one point to make sure they survived. I was very relieved when the better elements of humanity eventually prevailed and Rainy got back to the little community where people supported each other.

But those scary developments also resonated with me as I looked at where the current trends in our country might lead. As much as I hate what I see on the daily news, Rainy's acts of rebellion against the evil around him gave me hope that we can find ways to move beyond our current situation before it devolves that far. As my small-town next door neighbor recently told me "The radical people they talk about on the news are the exception, not the rule. The people I know are good, caring people, regardless of their political beliefs." If we can harness that innate goodness, maybe we can save our country.

Debi wrote: "Hello. This is my first time to read with Constant Reader and my first time to read I Cheerfully Refuse (love that title).

I just finished chapter 4, "when a flame is lit, move toward it," and wan..."

Welcome to the discussion, Debi! That reference to the proudly illiterate president really hit me too. I worry a lot about the recent challenges to specific books in schools and libraries, and the attempts to control what things people have access to read.

I look forward to hearing your reactions when you get to the darker portions of the book.

Ruth wrote: "One thing I wondered about was the fading away of that beautiful writing. What do you guys think? Did Enger do it purposely to increase the angst? Or did he just find it impossible to write beautifully about death, betrayal, torture and destruction?"

Those are great questions, Ruth. Enger is such a masterful writer that I would like to think he made the change in his writing to emphasize the darker elements and lack of beauty that Rainy encountered in his journey, but I could also believe that he found it impossible to write beautifully about those elements.

Tonya wrote: "Did I ever ponder if this was global? Everything was happening so fast, I don't believe I did."

I don't think I considered whether the extent of the catastrophe was global or localized to the U.S. while I was reading, but it was something that I thought about afterward. In particular, the climate change elements must have had global impacts.

One thing that has stuck with me is the concept of Lake Superior warming enough that the dead from long ago shipwrecks are starting to wash ashore. These lines from "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" kept running through my head:
"The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee
The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead"

People who live along the shores are divided about who's responsible for dealing with the bodies, but if I recall correctly Rainy tries to make sure the ones he encounters are buried. (I haven't completed my reread yet, so that could be a fuzzy memory from the initial read.)

I never read post-apocalyptic novels because I’ve been worried about what we are doing to our natural world for a very long time. Increasing that already extensive worry can feel a bit unbearable. But, like Ruth, I was so enchanted by the quality of the writing that I persevered.

I think that the writing after Rainy left was more plot driven and I am wondering if that’s why the quality changed. And, I think that the plot bogged down a bit as they went from village to village. However, those scenes with the bridge were brilliant, I thought. It was a nightmare of bureaucracy.

There were a number of great characters in this. Sol was my favorite, a little miracle of survival. I’m not sure that a child of that age could do all she did but I chose to suspend disbelief.

Wow, I really enjoyed this book.

Consider the possibility that Lake Superior itself is a main character in this book. I’ve only driven next to it once traveling through the upper Peninsula of Michigan to Marquette, MI for a family wedding in August 1989. On the Sunday that we drove home to Pittsburgh the lake was blacker than night at noon time. So foreboding. Iron ore was the main product, but even then one could see that industry was starting to falter. Superior makes a perfect setting for a story where the bodies are rising from the depths but the living people are trapped.

I loved the sweet way that Rainy wooed Lark, by learning to read the books he overheard her recommending.

I was also captivated by the title, but I’m not sure of its full meaning in this book.

I like your idea that Lake Superior is where dead bodies are rising but the living people are trapped. The summary from Enger's website describes the lake as "sentient", which has puzzled me since I read it. I'm still not sure what (or how) Superior was sensing or feeling. I hope some of you can help me with that.

I was also unsure of the meaning of the title. One of things I wondered about as I read was the duality of "I Cheerfully Refuse" being both the title of this book and the almost mythical book by Lark's favorite author, Molly Thorn. Did anyone else wrestle with that?

My interpretation of the title is much more simplistic. Rainy cheerfully refusing to conform to treating people the way they’ve been treating him (essentially trying to rob him at every turn). Rainy cheerfully refusing to accept the death he thought he was heading towards. He was beaten down so many times and just when he thought he couldn’t handle anything else, he thinks of his wife which forces him to push a little harder.


I loved the book. There were parts that felt a little too real to me. Although Lake Superior is a focal point for much of the story, I was reminded of Atlantic City in NJ. There are so many parts that screams wealth while other areas resemble something drained of life. There’s plenty of desolation and the few people you see when you’re passing by resemble descriptions given in this book. It’s a little eerie.

Hello again. I just finished another 4 chapters, ended with "trouble me no more."

I'm falling head over heals in love with this book. I know that something dark is coming, but I wish this could last forever.

Rainy and Lark, interesting names don't you think? Symbolic perhaps. They are a lovely and loving couple, caring, devoted, yet realistic. How nice to read about people like that.

Because of this story, I've been remembering old books I've read, remembering even a lovely old Beatles song, Octopus Garden. And there are so many lines that just delighted me. My book is full of sticky tabs.

Here's one, when they meet the kindred soul, the gray-haired woman on the other boat,

"How do you do, and where have you come from?" she inquired, just like if she were a Narnian or a whimsical rabbit drawn in pencil.

Lovely stuff.

I just finished this today. It was reluctant going at first but by halfway, I was very interested.

Shawn wrote: "There were parts that felt a little too real to me. Although Lake Superior is a focal point for much of the story, I was reminded of Atlantic City in NJ. There are so many parts that screams wealth while other areas resemble something drained of life. There’s plenty of desolation and the few people you see when you’re passing by resemble descriptions given in this book. "

That's an interesting observation, Shawn. Since I live in a rural Midwestern area, I hadn't really thought about the ways that places in our country are already falling apart. Sometimes I feel like I am in a cocoon here in the woods, insulated from some of the ugliness.