This is Jenn Delperdang, with the Sioux City Public Library, and you’re listening to Check It Out.
Today, I’m recommending I Cheerfully Refuse, the latest book by Leif Enger--a novel that is part dystopian love story, part nautical adventure, and a lyrical meditation on loss, kindness, and natural beauty.
In a not-too distant version of America, a handful of people own most of the world’s wealth. Reading has fallen out of fashion, literature is no longer valued, and publishing books ceases to exist, but Rainy and his wife Lark have found happiness on the small shores of Lake Superior--taking in lodgers that seek to escape from unnamed threats. After a devastating turn of events, Rainy sets sail on Lake Superior, in a run-down sailboat, hoping to outrun his grief and those pursuing him. Rainy weathers the storms on an almost sentient Lake Superior, befriending those willing to help him at various lakeside towns. He meets and helps to rescue Sol, a strong and crafty, almost feral child who joins him as a sailing companion on his journey.
I Cheerfully Refuse is very readable—Leif Enger’s prose is masterful. The characters are so well-crafted, you’ll even find the humanity in the story’s worst antagonist. This is not like his first best-selling novel, Peace Like a River. But this story is transcendent, terrifying, and ultimately hopeful.
Check out I Cheerfully Refuse by Leif Enger, and then join Kelsey Patterson and myself in conversation with Leif Enger on The First Fifty Pages Podcast.
Support for Check It Out on Siouxland Public Media comes from Avery Brothers.
