Weekend Book Notes: I Cheerfully Refuse, Leif Enger

Recently, I went deep into the Leif Enger catalog—consigning myself to a near-steady diet of Enger, which I kicked off by revisiting his masterful 2001 debut novel, Peace Like a River, and then followed with inaugural readings of So Brave, Young and Handsome (2008,) Virgil Wander (2018), culminating with his latest, I Cheerfully Refuse—a book he wrote during the pandemic which was released in April of this year.

I went on said binge because our fabulous local indie bookstore,  Eagle Harbor Books, was hosting Enger on the PNW leg of his book tour. (I’ll add a quick blurb on each of Enger’s first three novels in a subsequent Wit & Wisdom post.) But what I want to talk about here is his latest—which for me, was a deeply unsettling dystopian novel that hit a little too close to the bone. No fault of Enger’s—the book has been very well received. It’s the subject matter that gets  to me—I’ve had a difficult time shaking free of it in the same way I’ve never been able to completely recover from seeing the original The Stepford Wives (1975) or 2017’s Get Out, or for that matter, reading Rumaan Alam’s, Leave the World Behind (2020).

Generally speaking, I don’t write about books on Substack unless I either love them, would recommend them, or find something particularly noteworthy about the subject matter or writing. When it comes to offering critiques, my feeling is there’s more than enough criticism out in the world these days (much of it unnecessary and vitriolic), no need to add my two cents to the mix. But I’m making an exception here because I need to exorcise the more disturbing elements of the tale from my brain. But…given how believable and perhaps even prescient this book is, I wonder if that’s even possible? Read on and tell me if you agree.

When it comes to the professional critics, Ron Charles’ (Washington Post) review of I Cheerfully Refuse (which he calls “the sweetest apocalyptic novel yet”) is the best of the best. Let me extract a few paragraphs that will set the stage for where we go next.

“I Cheerfully Refuse… describes a future swamped by climate change, economic disparity and political decay. Sixteen wealthy families — so out of touch that they’re referred to as ‘astronauts’ — own all the ‘mineral rights and satellite clusters and news factories and prisons and most clean water and such shipping as remained.’ How comfortingly familiar!

But other trendlines from our time have reached their inevitable conclusion in the wasteland Enger describes: Pandemics have thinned the population. Indentured servitude is back in vogue, and the government provides ‘compliance therapeutics’ to keep workers docile and obedient. Nitrous oxide has become a common form of self-medication, and that’s the least of it: A drug called Willow, ‘a rising star in the market of despair,’ is ingested by individuals, entire families, and sometimes whole neighborhoods, to take their own lives. (In addition to the compliance therapies Charles writes about here, what really got me is that children are given a rating on the ‘Feral Comportment Scale’ and are medicated accordingly.)

Naturally, these calamities have been ushered in by a deep suspicion of learning, particularly of literature. Fundamentalists have closed universities, so-called ‘patriots’ have defunded libraries, and what’s left of America has elected the country’s ‘first proudly illiterate president.’ (Second, but who’s counting?)”

See what I mean?

One of the many things I appreciate about Enger, is that it’s clear he’s a writer who believes his readers are smart enough to figure things out on their own—and therefore, (thankfully) he  doesn’t resort to weighting us down with coma-inducing levels of backstory. But it’s this same attribute, that is precisely what makes I Cheerfully Refuse so horrifying.

When the book begins, you know there’s something slightly askew, but if you hadn’t read the book cover, it might take you a little bit to figure out exactly what that is. The world Enger’s describing—one of crumbling infrastructure and poverty—could easily be some neglected corner of America circa 2024. But as the story unfolds, it’s clear that the society we’ve been deposited in, is far worse than what any of us would care to imagine—the full horror of which is slowly revealed in such a brilliantly nuanced way, that you may feel you finally understand what T.S. Eliot meant when he wrote: “This is how the world ends/Not so much with a bang but a whimper.” Which makes the yarn Enger spins so much more devastatingly real.

Let me back up a bit here: Similar to Enger’s other books, his latest novel centers around a hero’s journey and a quest. In the case of I Cheerfully Refuse, our hero is the “bereaved and pursued musician (Rainier aka Rainy) embarking under sail on a sentient Lake Superior in search of his departed, deeply beloved, bookselling wife.” And who eventually takes on a sidekick in the form of a fearsome and fearless young girl named Sol. (Sidebar: As the book is regularly categorized as a reimagined Orphean quest, if you’re familiar with the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, you’ll know going in that Rainy’s beloved and spiritually lovely wife Lark, will meet an unfortunate end.)

Now, as Dante understood better than most—you can’t go on a quest without encountering some awful bits along the way. (I mean, if it were all lollipops and roses, what would be heroic about that?)

But in Enger’s earlier novels, (specifically, the first two) while there are thugs and would be rapists and generally murderous villains, the stories are infused with love and Frank Capra-level goodness and hope. There is also Bill Bryson-level humor within those pages that helps get the reader through all the tricky parts. But in his latest—again to quote Ron Charles—after Rainy takes on his young sidekick, Sol, I Cheerfully Refuse, “the enterprise feels like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn reconceived by Cormac McCarthy.” (Couldn’t have said it any better than that.)

In spite of it all, there are glimmers of hope within  the covers of I Cheerfully Refuse, a book that Enger told those of us who were fortunate enough to hear him speak—was a joy to write. And as anyone who’s written a novel can tell you, you don’t devote yourself to a couple of years of writing what in essence is deeply disturbing social commentary, unless you can imagine a way out in the end—especially if you’re Enger—a writer who is not shy about sprinkling his stories with a miracle or two.

Fortunately, our two pursued travelers encounter great kindnesses along the way—people who are willing to put themselves on the line in this violent and lawless world to help our renegades out. And as you see the love develop between childless Rainy and orphaned Sol—who over time, Rainy introduces to books and the miracles reading and learning can bring—you begin to believe that similar to other tales of beleaguered and evil worlds, that the real hope lies in the Lukes and Leias, the Harrys and Hermiones and Rons—and the Sols—the children who have no choice but to clean up the mess the adults have left behind.

There is a line in the book that I find myself quoting so often these days, (now that the world Enger conjures doesn’t feel that far off) I should perhaps consider getting the tattoo, “As enemies go, despair has every ounce of my respect.”  Words that remind me that no matter how bleak things appear, you can’t give in.

The book spares us a trite Hollywood (or Hallmark) ending, wrapping things up in  a way that not only seems more realistic, but perhaps provides a more actionable clue of how to keep despair at bay. And it’s not with grand gestures, but with what we see our increasingly literate Sol do in those final pages—when she acts as her own version of a fairy godmother—spreading flower and planting seeds all around town so that new growth springs forth from the most derelict places—this metaphor Enger leaves us with reminding us that kindness, love and optimism are the greatest antidotes to darkness that any of us will ever have.

Thanks for reading, and if this post resonates, please consider hitting the like button below. And as always, feel free to share.

Diana