Earlier I’d begun to imagine the lake on my side, a protective demigod, the queen herself, adorned with thunder, stepping between me and those who’d have my skin. So much for all that. Deceived in what I felt, and scared, and it seemed very hard that I would find the Slates, locate the precise hidey-hole Lark and I had sheltered in so long ago, only to have it occupied by enemies and have the lake turn every bit as hostile as they were. — from “I Cheerfully Refuse”
“This is the first time I felt sad to finish a book. I had such a good time writing it,” Leif Enger says of his new novel, “I Cheerfully Refuse,” a hard-to-define story that’s part sea adventure, part thriller, with a little magic along the way. It’s a love letter to bookstores, to reading, and to hope in a dark world, told in the lush prose we expect from the author of “Peace Like a River,” his…
