I Cheerfully Refuse

The reasons for despair are legion. But I cheerfully refuse.

With the title to his new novel, my friend Leif Enger, in only three words, raised a belligerent banner for our times: I Cheerfully Refuse. The story gives us grief-stricken Rainy aboard his sailing sloop as he skippers across Lake Superior and tries to navigate a battered future. “As far as enemies go,” says a beleaguered Rainy, “despair has every ounce of my respect.”

The wondrous thing about a story is how each of us can find ourselves right in the center of the action, even if our own particulars couldn’t be more different. My grief is distinct from Rainy’s, but I know the ache. I know despair’s dark, voracious pull. Despair can wreck a soul. As enemies go, it’s got all my respect. While Leif employs his line in a different way than I do here (and I’ll let you enjoy the pleasure of that discovery), the words took me down an interior path. Good writing does this.

Despair — and its cousin cynicism — are prime seductions in our age of disillusion. Despair is not the experience of grie…