I Cheerfully Refuse

I Cheerfully Refuse (2024) is the fourth novel by Leif Enger, a speculative, dystopian novel that examines present-day issues like wealth disparity and climate change. Drawing on the Greek myth of Orpheus, the novel follows Rainy, who embarks on a journey across Lake Superior, hoping to somehow reunite with his recently murdered wife, Lark. Along the way, he meets many people, saves a young girl, and resists a terrifying antagonist who works for the ultra-rich. Set in the near future on the waters and shores of Lake Superior (a place that Enger—who lives in Duluth, Minnesota—knows well and uses as inspiration), the novel explores themes related to grief, music, and navigating a dystopian world.

This guide uses the first edition hardcover, published by Grove Atlantic in 2024.

Content Warning: This guide includes moments of and references to suicide, addiction, abuse, and domestic violence.

Plot Summary

Rainier, or Rainy, and his wife, Lark, live in Icebridge, on Lake Superior. Rainy is a bass guitarist. Lark runs a local bookshop named Bread. They rent out their spare room to travelers and fleeing laborers. Icebridge is peaceful, but the world around it is crumbling. The wealthy increasingly hoard money and resources. Many in the working class try to escape labor contracts by fleeing across the lake to Canada.

One night, Rainy’s friend, Labrino, visits while Lark is out. The two men discuss Tashi’s Comet, which is approaching. Labrino considers comets bad omens, but Rainy thinks it’ll be beautiful. Lark reminds Rainy that a boarder is coming, a boy named Kellan. She’s excited because he’s bringing a copy of I Cheerfully Refuse; the last, unpublished novel by Lark’s favorite author, Molly Thorn. Kellan arrives, and Rainy takes him to the fair to look for car parts. During a fight between a vendor and a police officer, Kellan steals the parts. Rainy warms to Kellan and helps him work on his car. After almost crushing Rainy accidentally under the car, Kellan rushes to his room to use nitrous oxide; in a daze, he raves about a man named Werryck, warning Rainy to run when he arrives. Kellan stays a long time and helps Rainy fix his boat, Flowers. Rainy thinks of a trip he and Lark once took to the Slate Islands, where they think they met the spirit of Molly Thorn.

Driving to a gig one night, Rainy stops by Labrino’s house. He seems happy, and Rainy realizes that he’s about to die, having taken Willow, a new drug that eases people into the next world. Rainy stays with him while he dies. At Lark’s shop, an old man asks what special books she has. She shows him I Cheerfully Refuse but refuses to sell it. That night, Rainy throws a birthday party for Lark. The old man is there and asks Rainy odd questions. Rainy ignores him, trying to find Kellan, who’s missing; the next day, his belongings are gone. When a microburst hits the town, a friend’s dog goes missing, and Lark and Rainy split up to find it. Rainy returns home to find the house wrecked and Lark dead in Kellan’s room.

The police conclude that Rainy didn’t kill Lark. When he mentions that Kellan feared a man named Werryck, the police freeze and leave. Rainy learns the old man is Werryck. Rainy has a vision that Lark wants to meet him at the Slate Islands. At a gig, he sees Werryck in the crowd and narrowly escapes. He races to the dock and leaves on Flowers. After a rough, stormy, night, a woman on shore shoots at him as he drains the boat. He escapes and docks in Lightner.

Rainy buys supplies and runs into the police officer from the fair, who warns him to leave because he is wanted for theft. He sails to Thunder Bay, where he sees a missing-person poster for Kellan. He buys a disposable phone and calls the poster’s number once he’s back on the water. Werryck answers, explaining that Kellan stole a lot of Willow before running away from his contract. Werryck wants Rainy’s help to get it back. Rainy refuses, throwing the phone in the water.

Rainy next docks in Jolie and agrees to play guitar at a charity event in return for boat repairs. The local doctor, Girard empathizes with Rainy’s grief, having lost his daughter. He and his wife help Rainy prepare for the final leg of his trip. When he enters the Slates bay, he sees a cruiser he knows is Werryck’s. Fleeing into a storm, he falls overboard but catches a rope and climbs back aboard. The next morning, he finds tabs of Willow in one of Kellan’s nitrous can in the boat.

On the Michigan coast, a young girl, Sol, is fishing with a trident. She takes Rainy to her uncle, King Richard, who trades supplies for Rainy’s gun. Back on the water, Rainy finds the girl stowed away because King Richard abuses her. Rainy returns to King Richard and trades his guitar for her freedom. She tells him her grandfather, Papa Griff, is in Redfield, and Rainy decides to take her there.

They sail down a canal. The island side is desolate and run-down; the mainland side looks pleasant. A gas station attendant tells them that the two towns once coexisted peacefully but now despise each other. The mainland town, Brighton, thinks the island town, Blinker, is full of heathens. Rainy navigates to a bridge and negotiates passage with Alistair, the bridgemaster. Charging an absurd price, he gives them a certificate and tells them they can cross in the morning. The next morning, the on-duty bridgemaster says their certificate has expired.

Rainy and Sol cover Flowers in mud, hoping to sneak by Alistair. A group from Brighton crosses the bridge to raid Blinker and returns with three prisoners, whom they hang. After they leave, Rainy sails under the bridge without Alistair noticing, anchors, and goes to return equipment he borrowed from a Blinker woman. When he returns, Sol has set the bridge on fire. While she recovers from hypothermia, Rainy reads I Cheerfully Refuse to her. They look for Papa Griff, finally finding him in Port Minera. They head for Jolie, but a storm knocks them off course and they land on Michipicoten Island next to Werryck’s cruiser. They are escorted aboard a medicine ship working on pharmaceutical projects.

Visiting Rainy’s cell deep in the ship, Werryck says that he’s convicted of aiding a fugitive. Werryck gives Rainy his guitar. At first, Werryck doesn’t like Rainy’s playing and allows him to work on the paint crew if it helps him focus his music. Rainy learns from the crew that 12 prisoners escaped the ship. One night, as Rainy plays, Werryck takes him out on the deck of the ship to see the 12 prisoners, who have been recaptured. One is Kellan. Rainy meets Kellan at his cell, and Kellan explains that he was a test subject for a compliance medicine that made him follow any order, and Werryck told him to put his hand in a fire.

Werryck locks the 12 prisoners in a cage on a raft out on the water overnight in a storm. They survive, and the ship grows restless with hope. They’re brought back onto the ship. Werryck, who summons Rainy early, has a migraine and isn’t himself. One of his men interrupts their session, and Werryck and Rainy follow him out. Prisoners and workers have staged a mutiny and are boarding the cruiser to leave. No guards resist them because the mutineers put compliance medicine in their food. Powerless, Werryck ends up in a cell. The mutineers, including Kellan, leave on the ship, while Rainy and Sol leave on Flowers for Jolie. Rainy offers to take Papa Griff with them, but he refuses.

In Jolie, Sol and Rainy begin a new life, staying with Girard and his wife. Rainy watches Tashi’s Comet every morning as it nears Earth. Sol enjoys reading and learning. A member from his paint crew visits, reporting that the medicine ship sank and Werryck died, but all the refugees are safe. As the comet nears its brightest day, Rainy finally goes to the Slates, where he feels Lark’s presence beside him and sees a future in which the people he met on his journey are happy. He leaves the Slates to join them.