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I Cheerfully Refuse
By Leif Enger
Grove Press, 9780802162939, April 2024. 336 pp.

The Short of It:

Some books just stop you in your tracks. This is one of them.

The Rest of It:

Rainy and Lark live just off of Lake Superior. Their marriage is pretty wholesome. She is a lover of books and runs a small bookshop. Rainy is a little rough and tumble in appearance but a musician and a romantic at heart. The two are happy, and live a simple existence.

Their lives take a nasty turn after taking in a boarder. Kellen is a strange one. Young, but existing on what is essentially laughing gas. He keeps strange hours and is on the secretive side. The world is slowly changing and Lark and Rainy continue to ponder where this young man fits in.

Then, the unspeakable happens. Their lives are turned completely upside down, Kellen the boarder is gone, and a horrible tragedy is left behind. Did Kellen do this? Did someone else?

Completely bereft, Rainy prepares his small boat and hits the open water to find that elusive thing. Happiness? Peace? But the world is not the same. Towns are overrun by thugs and bullies. Abandoned towns are left with these odd statues taking up residence. What is going on? Some people are fending for themselves, weapons in hand. Others use the downward spiral of the world as an opportunity to take advantage of the weak.

Rainy is at a complete loss until he accidentally runs into a young girl by the name of Sol who needs his help. Sol is like Pippi from Pippi Longstocking! Full of spunk and with a natural tendency to survive. She is the breath of air that Rainy needed and the two form an unbreakable bond.

This story is full of adventure on the high water. Enger puts the reader right on the boat. The sailing terminology, the cold spray when the weather takes a turn, their hunger as they figure out how two can eat with supplies that were hardly enough for one. There are bad guys, a form of “treasure” that makes Rainy and Sol a target, and then there is beautiful music and lovely words from the one book that Lark cherished, a book titled I Cheerfully Refuse.

What a wonderful book!! I cannot sing its praises enough. I laughed and cried. Literally. You will be choked up. It’s slightly dystopian but mostly adventure with plenty of hijinks. Rainy and Sol will forever live in my mind.

Source: Borrowed
Disclosure: This post contains Indiebound affiliate links.

The Great Believers
By Rebecca Makkai
Penguin, 9780735223530, June 2019, 448pp.

The Short of It:

A wide, expansive novel.

The Rest of It:

“A dazzling novel of friendship and redemption in the face of tragedy and loss set in 1980s Chicago and contemporary Paris

In 1985, Yale Tishman, the development director for an art gallery in Chicago, is about to pull off an amazing coup, bringing in an extraordinary collection of 1920s paintings as a gift to the gallery. Yet as his career begins to flourish, the carnage of the AIDS epidemic grows around him. One by one, his friends are dying and after his friend Nico’s funeral, the virus circles closer and closer to Yale himself. Soon the only person he has left is Fiona, Nico’s little sister.” ~ the publisher

This novel encompasses so much. Yale is on the cusp of acquiring an art collection that would really put his name on the map, but there are complications. The current owner of the pieces, an elderly lady by the name of Nora, has specific desires for each piece, and her family, doesn’t approve of any of it. True, it would leave them without the inheritance but it’s art, beautiful art and meant to be enjoyed in a gallery.

Alternating between moments of beauty, there is the AIDS epidemic of the 80s. We find these characters just at the beginning of the downward spiral. Nico, is the first to be lost. Leaving a behind a handful of loyal friends who don’t really know how to go on without his constant presence.

Chicago’s gay pride scene is just starting to ramp up, along with the number of people stricken with this terrible disease. Medications are not readily available or even invented yet and the ones that do exist are too costly for the average Joe to afford. That part, has not changed has it?

Yale and his friends do their best to support the ones that get hit with the virus, but isn’t it only a matter of time before they are all affected by it in some way, directly or indirectly. They are terrified and often find themselves hopeless so this art collection is really the only thing holding Yale together.

In addition to these very serious issues, Fiona is searching desperately for her adult daughter and her grand-daughter who left the states for Paris with absolutely no trace at all. Fiona is going mad trying to find them and enlists the help of friends.

This is a beautiful, yet sad novel about friendships, love, art, everything. As depressing as the storyline is, I found myself looking forward to reading it. It seemed very hopeful in places and I appreciated those moments. We picked this for our book club pick this month and it will get a lot of discussion I think.

I will say, that as I read this book, I kept searching through my blog to see if I had read it before. According to my blog and GoodReads, no. I’ve not read it before but it felt very familiar. It did remind me a little bit of A Little Life. The Great Believers doesn’t deliver the gut punch that A Little Life did, but the tone and the friendships are similar.

I highly recommend this one. The art bits are lovely and the relationships are strong.

Source: Borrowed
Disclosure: This post contains Indiebound affiliate links.

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