Book Club Discussion Questions for I Cheerfully Refuse by Leif Enger

1. "Here at the beginning," the book opens, "it must be said the End was on everyone's mind." What does Rainy mean by this? When and where is the novel set? How does the author use this first line of the story to acquaint readers with the world the narrator and the other characters inhabit and to foreshadow the major themes and concerns of the novel?
2. Explore the novel within the framework of dystopian literature. "We understood the margins where we lived," Rainy says (75). How does the book address dystopian topics such as the erosion of law and politics and the decay of education, infrastructure, and the environment? How does the imagery of the book support this? Does the book ultimately indicate whether a better future might be possible or how this might be achieved?
3. At the start of the novel, Rainy's friend Labrino muses about "signs and wonders" (3). "Now tell me what you make of this comet business," (2) he says to Rainy referring nervously to the expected arrival of the Tashi comet. Many of the other characters—including the narrator—also look for direction from their natural surroundings. How does the book explore the relationship between superstition, symbolism, and humankind's search for meaning? Why do people search for signs especially in, as Labrino says, "unfriendly" (3) times? Within the novel, do they receive what they are looking for? For instance, is Lake Superior really sentient? Discuss.
4. Enger's novel contains numerous references to Miguel de Cervantes's classic, epic work Don Quixote. "[W]e were ... as Lark liked to whisper in the dark, quixotes," Rainy shares (6). "You are Quixote himself," Lark tells Rainy (52). What is a quixote? Although Rainy seems amused by Lark's characterization, why does Rainy say "I wish I'd never finished that book" (52)? What parallels are there between the two tales and where do they diverge?
5. What lesson does Rainy say that "[i]t's taken all [his] life to learn" (39)? What "vow is provisional and makeshift" (39)? Do you agree with him? Why or why not?
6. Consider how the book explores cruelty. How does the book demonstrate the effects of cruelty on both victim and aggressor? "Nothing sinks your spirit like your own cruelty," Rainy says (192). What are some of the reasons that the various characters in the novel are cruel to one another? What roles do power and survival play in this?
7. Recalling the conversation he overheard between Lark and the old sailor who Lark believed to be Molly Thorn, Rainy says: "I remember the word undersung. [The sailor] was talking about the bandits and vagrant Vikings and skeptical Indigenous omitted from heroic texts" (49). Who are the undersung and how are they represented in Enger's own novel? How does this challenge or reframe prior notions of whose voices and experiences should be centered in historical tales and epic literature?
8. "As enemies go," Rainy says, "despair has every ounce of my respect" (90). Explore despair and hope as coexisting themes of the novel. Why do so many characters decide to take the "therapeutic" Willow and end their lives and how do their friends and neighbors respond to this? What does it mean to "[go] in search of better" (22)? Alternatively, how does the book present an exploration of hope as antithesis? How do resistance and rebellion serve as counterpoints to despair?
9. Consider how the novel addresses humankind's relationship with nature. Would you say that nature is depicted in the book as a friendly force or as a foe? Explain. How does the book address not only nature's impact on humans but humankind's impact on the natural world
10. Where does the title of the novel come from? What does Molly Thorn's stepmother tell her that it was "our job always and for- ever ... to refuse" (237)? In line with this, how does the book function as allegory and a screed against futility? What does it mean to cheerfully refuse?
11. Describe "the day [that Rainy] remembered the future" (300). How does he say that he reimagined his own future? What leads him to this revelation? What do you think Rainy means when he says, "It was easy then to feel the future coming for us all, to imagine in some way all of us knew it" (301)?
12. Discuss how I Cheerfully Refuse engages in a dialogue with epic poetry and novels of the past such as The Odyssey or the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice, for example. How is epic literature defined and how does Enger's novel fit in with this? Consider language and lyricism as well as the author's update of the classic hero's voyage. "In [classic] stories the sailor wakes after the storm and behold the sun is up," Rainy says (103), but how is Enger's epic story different?
13. Rainy acts within the novel as a kind of Orphean hero replete with musical powers. Explore how the book addresses the power of music and art. Would it be fair to say that it saved Rainy's life? How do the other characters in the book respond to Rainy's bass-playing and how do they use art in their own lives as a means of expression, a coping mechanism, or a means for activism and resistance, for example?
14. How does the novel create a portrait of grief ? For instance, how do the various characters in the novel cope with their losses? What stages of grief are represented in the book? What surprises Rainy about his own process of grieving? Does the book seem to make any ultimate statements about grief and loss? Explain.
15. The novel portrays a post-literate world where "[r]eading was on the ropes" (22) and "[t]here was a sinuous mistrust of text and its defenders" (30). What is at stake? Why and how do some of the characters in the novel try to counter this and defend literacy and how does this impact them? What is media like during this time? How does Rainy feel, for instance, about the local publication The Mosquito? "More words are better," he recalls Lark saying during an argument over whether they should accommodate The Mosquito in her shop (72). Do you agree with her? Why or why not?
16. Rainy speaks of a conflict of conscience he suffers when he considers offering Ricky some Willow in exchange for allowance to pass under the bridge. Towards the end of the novel, recalling someone else's crisis of conscience, Rainy says: "I couldn't despise Burke; I could've been Burke" (315). What does he mean? Where else does the novel explore such tense moments of conscience? How does the book ultimately explore the complicated nature of human morality and notions of what—and who—is "good" or "bad"? Does the book ever answer the question of how "humanity" should be defined?
17. Describing Molly Thorn's eponymous, unpublished volume I Cheerfully Refuse, Rainy explains: "Some said it was a memoir, some said a parable in response to the short period in which so many things counted on went away. A onetime book scout of Lark's acquaintance described it as a covenant with the forthcoming. A vow to creatures not yet conceived" (30). Discuss how this description might also be apt in looking at Rainy's story—and Enger's novel which contains it.

Unless otherwise stated, this discussion guide is reprinted with the permission of Atlantic Monthly Press. Any page references refer to a USA edition of the book, usually the trade paperback version, and may vary in other editions.