I Cheerfully Refuse

By: Leif Enger

Narrated by: David Aaron Baker

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 more than a million copies and captured audiences’ hearts around the globe. Now comes a new milestone in this boldly imaginative author’s 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. Amid 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.

“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

©2024 Reuben Land Corporation (P)2024 Recorded Books

Great epic sweet story

An apocalyptic journey told from the perspective of a gentle and kind Everyman. Has elements of cormac McCarthy and the Iliad and maybe a little mad max. Loved it

Epic Moving Story

I am so thankful to have found Leif Enger - to have been willingly lost in this epic story - and to emerge wiser, and hopeful, and grateful for the good we have and the need to tend to that good.

Slow Stead Burn

This book is a slow, but steady pace for a book. I listened at 1.9x speed and that kept it moving for me. Any slower and I might have lost interest. The characters are steady also, nothing wild, but solid characters.

Post Apocalyptic Yet Beautiful

Loved this book, gripping, engaging, beautiful and tragic. Interesting take on what post decline America might be through the captivating lens of Enger’s Superior.

Very well written

Great book, great characters, very well written, and great narration. Definitely worth a listen. well done!

Evocative storytelling of a world in despair

As a Wisconsin resident, I found it comforting enough to imagine my world within this seemingly plausible future, and it put me in the story while reading the very personal experience as Rainy as he navigated this world. The writing feels poetic at times and while it seemed to be constantly building toward a predictably mediocre culmination, the instability of the world gave this story a consistently perilous feel.

A Gift of Gifts…

Leif Enger’s gifts for storytelling are strong - very strong. They include engaging plot lines, fascinating metaphoric descriptions, and a pervading, generous spirit that is both gentle & kind, while being also brave and bold in calling out the ‘nut’ of what’s happening. I was in attendance when Leif spoke in Pittsburgh in the Ten Evenings Pittsburgh Arts & Lecture Series in April 2025. His conveyance of the inspiration that comes rather mystically in its own timeframe (middle of the night awakening, as if out of a dream, but not a dream) inspired all by itself. Leif Enger’s humility & humor were on full display both during his lecture and his interview afterwards. For our dystopic moment in the USA, I recommend, ‘I Cheerfully Refuse’ as medicinal as well as magisterial. Outstanding!

A great book

Part Orpheus, Odysseus, Aeneas and Dante with Don Quixote. This book is a robust ode to a life jolly, cantankerous and free. It is a call to grow, to love truth and to love it with mercy, grace and cheer. A story of beauty. Unless you’ve fully realized a sense of home, acceptance, truth, joy and forgiveness, you should read this book

Never a dull moment!

I truly enjoyed this book in a way many have not taken me. The Narrator was perfect. He filled the story telling even beyond the written words. He added just enough emotion to allow the listener to be in the moment along with him without whining or over acting. Well done to both writer and narrator!

Dystopia rust belt odyssey

This story felt like a take on The Odyssey with all the strange characters along the way of a sea journey. It is grim and dark for sure- as some readers have noted, but this is dystopic fiction, although in this case it was more dystopian literature which made it a winner to me.