I Cheerfully Refuse

I generally don’t like an apocalyptic novel, it’s true. Just see my post about last year’s Booker winner, Prophet Song by Paul Lynch…

But I just finished I Cheerfully Refuse by Leif Enger, a book that The Washington Post’s review refers to as “…the sweetest apocalyptic novel yet.” This is the perfect little descriptor; Enger has written the kind of apocalyptic novel I can get behind. (I suppose I’m biased because his novel Peace Like a River is one of my favorites, but nonetheless…)

In 2001, we were living in NYC. The Sunday after 9/11, we attended church. The pastor, the late Rev. Tim Keller, implored the congregation — filled with many people, I’m sure, who were trying to figure out how to permanently leave what seemed like a post-apocalyptic city — “Please, stay. Stay in New York.” And I feel like this is the message of I Cheerfully Refuse, a tale that takes protagonist Rainy on an Odyssean voyage in search of his late wife, Lark, a bookseller who had believed “Better is here [now, in the present]. Stay, and make it better.”

If you’ve seen the TV series Fargo and understand its eerie portrayals of “evil,” you’ll already have one foot in the door with Enger’s work. And the same goes with the portrayal of “good.” In fact, Enger writes this: “Lark’s theory of angels was that they are us and we mostly don’t remember.”

So, yes, I Cheerfully Refuse is absolutely a “sweet” apocalyptic novel that gives readers something to hang their hats on, something to strive for. “Lark said the word apocalypse originally had nothing to do with nukes or climate but came from a Greek term meaning to uncover. To reveal.” Wouldn’t we rather uncover something — anything — that gives us hope?

{In full transparency, I think I like Enger’s three other novels better. But when it comes to an author like him, I’ll take it all.}

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originally published on instagram