In 2010 two septuagenarians reminisce on a balcony overlooking a former town and river valley inundated fifty years before by the damned waters of the massive Snowy Mountain Scheme. One of them, Ralph McDonald, feels compelled to retell dramatic events from his youth, ones related to things hidden in the depths of his conscience and in the waters themselves. An unlikely trio of late teenagers-the scion of Australian landed gentry, the brilliant son...