From the publisher: In this highly anticipated sequel to his international bestseller The Old Ways, Macfarlane takes us on an extraordinary journey into our relationship with darkness, burial, and what lies beneath the surface of both place and mind. Traveling through “deep time”—the dizzying expanses of geologic time that stretch away from the present—he moves from the birth of the universe to a post-human future, from the prehistoric art of Norwegian sea caves to the blue depths of the Greenland ice cap, from Bronze Age funeral chambers to the catacomb labyrinth below Paris, and from the underground fungal networks through which trees communicate to a deep-sunk “hiding place” where nuclear waste will be stored for 100,000 years to come. Woven through Macfarlane’s own travels are the unforgettable stories of descents into the underland made across history by explorers, artists, cavers, divers, mourners, dreamers, and murderers, all of whom have been drawn for different reasons to seek what Cormac McCarthy calls “the awful darkness within the world.”

It’s no spoiler to say Macfarlane’s answer to his titular question is YES: here he weaves together three journeys to three rivers in Ecuador, India, and Canada to make this case. In each place the river is considered by the people to be, in some essential way, alive. And each river is in danger: from mining, pollution, and man-made interference, respectively. But if these rivers are alive—as Macfarlane believes they are—how we respond to the current crisis has sweeping ramifications on our world and our souls. Macfarlane’s gift is to meld adventure, philosophy, ecology, and nature writing into cohesive, riveting narratives, rendered in sparkling prose. This beautiful and timely study is a worthy addition to MacFarlane’s body of work, and also serves as a welcoming entry point for new readers.