Aljaz Cosini, river guide, is leading a group of tourists on a raft down Tasmania's wild Franklin River when his greatest fear is realized - a tourist falls into the river and may drown. An ordinary man with many regrets, Aljaz rises to an uncharacteristic heroism and offers his own life in trade.
Aljaz becomes trapped under rapids and waits in the hope of being rescued, his mind flooded with visions both horrible and fabulous, reliving the history of his own life and those of his forbears. He sees Couta Ho, the beautiful, spirited woman he loved, and he sees how that love was broken by tragic loss. He sees his pipe-smoking Auntie Ellie pursued by cows she thinks are evil spirits. As cities grow from the wild rain forest he witnesses Ellie's husband, Reg, having his teeth pulled and sold to pay for a ripple-iron house.
As towns turn blue, as whales fly over mountains, and as a tree bursts into flamboyant flower every midwinter at his grandfather's forest grave, Aljaz discovers himself traveling down a river, but it is no river he recognizes. It leads him to a world where dreaming reasserts its power over thinking, where his family tree branches into stories that are Aboriginal, Celtic, Italian, Irish, Chinese, Slovene - stories that ground him in the land. As the river rises and his visions grow more turbulent, Aljaz discovers within them the soul history of his country.
Death of a River Guide is the story of one man who discovers that there is nothing in his extraordinary universe to which he is unconnected: plants and animals as well as men and women, small things as well as large. It is a book about family and place, and the roots that pull us back to our origins. Earthy, magical, comic, and tragic by turns, it is a novel that celebrates life and confirms Richard Flanagan as one of the world's most exciting new voices.