Death of a River Guide

Underneath a waterfall on a remote Tasmanian mountain river, river guide Aljaz Cosini is drowning, beset by visions of his own life and those of his family and ancestors, in stories that reconnect him to the history and soul of his country. By the author of The Sound of One Hand Clapping.

"The whole river is like a huge army on the march, overrunning the countryside, taking all before it, collecting ever greater strength from every dripping moss-lined rock face, from every overexcited stream." This body of water, Tasmania's Franklin River, is agent of life and death in Australian writer Flanagan's dark, prophetic novel. Jason Krezwa and Aljaz Cosini are the guides on a rafting trip that turns bad when the river floods. One of the paying guests dies and, shortly afterward, Aljaz stumbles into the raging waters and drowns. Granted the legendary ability of drowning men to see their life flash before them, Aljaz envisions his life, the lives of his mother and father and their ancestors, too. Family histories intertwine with the story of the four-day river journey, a trip perversely confirming Aljaz's sense of utter failure. The narrative skips from Aljaz's father, Harry, to his great-grandfather Ned Quade, a convict who died in the Tasmanian wilderness escaping from his captors. Aljaz himself has led a sad life, the low point the death of his daughter, Jemma, which permanently soured his relationship with his lover, Couta Ho. Aljaz's vision deepens some knowledge he already possesses--for instance, that Harry's grandmother was an aborigine. Harry and Aljaz are both decent men whose lives narrow to a cycle of futile efforts and bad luck. Like Australian Nobelist Patrick White, Flanagan (The Sound of One Hand Clapping) has a sense of history as a vast entanglement of genealogies, beginning with the original sin of deportation and compounded by the extermination or expropriation of the "blackfellas." Flanagan has written a Tasmanian anti-epic, an honest, painful investigation of the repressed, convict-haunted past. Agent, Heather Schroder, ICM. (Mar.)Forecast: Extracts of strong reviews from Australia, where this novel first appeared, may guide readers to this book, as will any publicity or display that ties it into the ongoing adventure boom while emphasizing Flanagan's literary prowess (The Sound of One Hand Clapping won the Australian Booksellers of the Year Award and the Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction). In any case, this novel won't sell itself but will benefit from intelligent marketing.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Tasmanian writer Flanagan made his American debut with his acclaimed second novel, The Sound of One Hand Clapping (1999), and now his extraordinary first novel follows. Aljaz Cosini, a melancholy guide on the tumultuous Franklin River, is trapped in the rocks beneath a punishing waterfall and is slowly drowning. It's said that your life passes before your eyes just before death, and Flanagan--who pours the fierce beauty of his land and the haunting tragedy of its violent human history into prose that surges as exhilaratingly as the river he so vividly depicts--presents not only Aljaz's bittersweet life but that of his ancestors. As Aljaz's body is battered by the cataract, his brain is flooded with visions of his Slovenian Italian mother and enigmatic father, whose family denied the "taint" of their Celtic convict and Aboriginal blood, opposed legacies Aljaz finally embraces. Every element of Flanagan's sagacious, poetic, and gripping tale is charged with the poignancy and absurdity of Aljaz's fate, a provocative metaphor for our simultaneous connection to and alienation from our past and the natural world. Donna Seaman
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In the aftermath of a rafting accident, Tasmanian river guide Aljaz Cosini lies lifeless at the bottom of a waterfall; not only does his own life flash before his eyes but also an array of his ancestors' travails, reaching back to the 1820s and outlining for the reader a cultural history of the island reflected through this family's personal journey. The novel's protagonists are consistently dogged by a dirty little secret: the real possibility that both convict and aboriginal blood infests the family tree. As Aljaz's hallucinations become more vast and detailed, this supposition appears to be true, and interspersed among the clan's misadventures is a compelling portrait of a country coming to grips with its unique heritage. As metaphysical as this may sound, this new work from the author of the award-winning The Sound of One Hand Clapping reads more like a page-turner; excellently paced and brimming with personality, it has meaty characterizations, authentic dialog, and doses of humor. Highly recommended for public and academic libraries.
-DMarc Kloszewski, Indiana Free Lib., PA
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.