The Conversations at Curlow Creek

by David Malouf

A new work of fiction by the author of Remembering Babylon. It is 1827, and, in a remote hut high on the plains of New South Wales, two strangers spend the night in talk. One, an illiterate Irishman, and ex-convict and bushranger, is to be hanged at dawn. The other is the police officer who has been sent to supervise the hanging. As the night wears on, the two men share memories and uncover unlikely connections between their lives. 240 pp. Author tour. 20,000 print.

Genres: Fiction, Australia, Historical Fiction, Historical, Novels, Literary Fiction, Literature

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

David Malouf is a celebrated Australian poet, novelist, librettist, playwright, and essayist whose work has garnered international acclaim. Known for his lyrical prose and explorations of identity, memory, and place, Malouf began his literary career in poetry before gaining recognition for his fiction. His 1990 novel The Great World won the Miles Franklin Award and several other major prizes, while Remembering Babylon (1993) earned a Booker Prize nomination and multiple international honors.
Malouf has taught at universities in Australia and the UK, delivered the prestigious Boyer Lectures, and written libretti for acclaimed operas. Born in Brisbane to a Lebanese father and a mother of Sephardi Jewish heritage, he draws on both Australian and European influences in his work. He is widely regarded as one of Australia's most important literary voices and has been recognized with numerous awards, including the Neustadt International Prize for Literature and the Australia Council Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature.

Reviews

[Will Byrnes · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is 1827 in a remote part of Australia. A criminal and the man sent to hang him talk of their past and …..

Mostly the story is of Michael Adair and Fergus Connellan, their history in Ireland and the different paths their lives have taken, and love yearned for and lost.

In early 19th century Ireland, Michael Adair’s opera-singer parents perish at sea when he is three years old. Adopted by his mother’s friend, the suitably named Aimee Connellan, he is raised in a household that soon sees the arrival of Fergus, a somewhat wild, younger sibling for him. Michael is a model older brother, but as the years pass and Fergus begins to surpass Michael, conflict seems inevitable. The love of Michael’s life is Virgilia, and can that name really not connote Dante?


David Malouf - image from The Herald Sun - Picture by Conrad del Villar

The story begins in remotest Australia, where Michael is a trooper who has tracked down a fellow Irishman, wanted for murder and sentenced to hanging. The conversation between Michael and his prisoner, Daniel Carney, consists of musings on life but mostly serves as a mechanism for presenting back story. And we flip back and forth between the present with its imminent hanging and the personal tales that show us how Michael and some others have gotten to where they are at present (1827).

Malouf offers classical references. Surely the name of the love of Michael’s life, Virgilia, must make one think being guided through a harsh landscape. Near the end of the book Michael thinks of the result of his journey as “a self that has journeyed to the underworld and come back both more surely itself and changed.”

Life is harsh in the world of this story. Michael’s loss of parentage contrasts with the soft cushion in which he lands. His adoration of Virgilia contrasts with the fact that she loves another. Michael’s stolidness, loyalty, groundedness stands in stark contrast to Fergus’ wild, impulsive, charismatic character. The sylvan verdancy of Ireland stands out against the sere flat landscape of the Australian outback. Faced with barriers and choices how do different men decide what path to follow? There seems to be a real question in here about human nature. Do we choose to be law-abiding citizens or criminals based on moral/ethical concerns or are we predetermined to become what we become by an inherent nature?

I wished that there had been more in here about Fergus, perhaps showing a bit more how he came to become the person he becomes. And I wanted to see more of Virgilia as well. She remains rather a guide through this underworld than an actual participant.

Malouf is a joy to read. He presents interesting characters and grown up themes, and does not insult his readers with gift-wrapped answers.


Malouf's FB page.

[Vit Babenco · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are two men – they are rather similar in their nature but they are on the opposite sides of a barricade… One is destined to be hanged and the other is destined to be his executioner… And they are so far from their home.

It was one of the many contradictions of Adair’s existence that though he was by nature a man who would have liked nothing better than to see the sun rise and set each day on the same bit of turf, he had spent all the years of his manhood, thirteen to be precise, in one foreign army or another far from home – if by home one means not four walls and a roof, with a fire and a chair before it, but the place of one’s earliest affection, where that handful of men and women may be found who alone in all the world know a little of your wants, your habits, the affairs that come nearest your heart, and who care for them.

The Conversations at Curlow Creek is a tale of a soldier and of those who where fated to encounter him… And it is a love story.
“It’s strange that, how one man’ll go one way, another just the opposite.” Life always divides people into friends and adversaries – this is the way of the world.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book, wonderful writer, mesmerising prose and memorable images. It has a surreal, dreamlike quality as the man condemned to die at dawn spends an uneasy night with his jailer.

[George · Rating 4 out of 5]

An original, interesting historical fiction novel set in the remote high plains of NSW, Australia in 1827. Carney, an illiterate, ex convict, bushranger, Irishman is to be hanged at dawn. Adair, a law enforcement officer is sent to supervise the hanging. Adair and Carney talk the night before the execution, sharing memories, uncovering unlikely connections.

Adair came to Australia voluntarily, to become an independent man who would be able to go back to Ireland to a future with Virgilia, daughter of a neighbouring landowner in Ireland. Adair grew up with his adopted family’s younger son, Fergus. Fergus, instead of taking over his family property, travels to the NSW colony and has become a rebel leader.

This book was shortlisted for the 1997 Miles Franklin Award.

[Old Man JP · Rating 5 out of 5]

An exceptional book that takes place in early 1800's Australia. Much of the book is told through a conversation between a man named Carney who is scheduled to be hung the next morning and a man named Adair who is guarding him. Both men are Irish and their conversation tells each of the stories of their life in Ireland and how they ended up in Australia. Malouf's writing is magnificent using very poetic prose and his use of dialogue is some of the best I've ever read (especially the dialogue of Carney who is illiterate). Anyone reading the book is going know and like both men by the time they finish it.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

I suppose I was so enrapt by the pensive and pulsing primary narrative – an outlaw, a soldier, an array of unique underlings, an imminent execution, and the stark, severe landscape of New South Wales – that the novel’s secondary story, an austere Brontë-esque family drama-cum-love triangle told in flashbacks, took on a beleaguering aspect. I suppose the fault may be in my having ingested way too many films of this ilk to suffer it easily. And, personally, I did feel the flashbacks encroached unfairly on the narrative, despite their obvious necessity and occasional prosy profundities.

But the primary narrative is a raw, visceral thing. At once sweaty and shivering, the writing touches your skin.

Does this not give you tingles?:

“Stepping out into the chill of it, Adair was struck once again by the vastness of the world up here on the high plains, by how much closer the sky was – so close you felt the weight of the stars, their mineral quality, and marveled that they should hang there, glowing and turning.”

And the next paragraph is just as wonderful, starting with its sigh-worthy line: “The sky was all dazzle.”

Even the novel’s pontifications take on a visceral vibe. I love this:

“The armour that protected you, the enchanted zone you walked in, depended on your refusal to accept that your death, your actual physical removal from the universe and from your own meaty presence and weight and breath, had either a place on the map or an hour in the sequence that was measurable time. But this man’s death was announced.”

Malouf marries intellect and psychology to the earth and the flesh in his prose.

He’s a coolly thematic writer too. Do circumstances, decisions or a predetermined nature make us who we are? Is good and evil so black and white, or are they amorphous, or are they at all? He weaves some persistent questions through the Conversations and across the landscape (which serves as both setting and character).

This is to a large degree a story of contrasts (Ireland/Australia, Adair/Fergus, Adair/Carney, Garrety is a contrast within himself), so I’ll forgive the Victorian melodrama. But, for me, a 120-page novella of the Curlow Creek narrative with glimpses into the past would have easily made this a 4 or 5-star read. Like David Malouf gives a crap about that. But still.

3.5 stars.

To the novel’s credit, I sat down to write a small paragraph as a review. And here I am.

[Shane · Rating 3 out of 5]

A brooding novel, elegantly written but leaving me with a myriad of possible conclusions at the end: what happens to two principal characters in this novel, Fergus and Carney? I like open ended short stories, but I kind of feel taken for a ride when the same happens in a novel.

The story flips between Ireland and Australia. Adair is the officer sent to execute Carney, a convict captured in the nascent unruly nation of Australia back in the 1820’s. During a night of conversations in a god-forsaken hell-hole of a place called Curlow Creek, both connect with the larger-than-life character Fergus, who, in different ways had brought them to this pass. In the end we don’t know whether Carney was executed or escaped (one of those nagging open-ends for me) or whether both men find the answers that they are looking for. We get the sense that Fergus is dead somewhere in the Outback, leaving Adair free to pursue the enigmatic Virgilia back home in Ireland.

Australia is a metaphor for the Inferno, where men go to find answers and seek redemption before entering paradise. But if Adair’s return to Ireland, after paying his dues in Australia, is likened to entering Paradise (Ireland), I’m not sure I buy that – I thought the Irish were getting ready to leave for the Americas at about that time to escape the coming Potato Famine?

I found the style pompous. The author’s obvious flair for language intruded in the voice of the narrator Adair from time to time. Yes, Adair is part of the aristocracy, but he is also a soldier in a rough land – let him reflect that in his speech and actions. Yet, we had this literary voice mouthing metaphor and poetic turns of phrase in the wrong places. I also have a beef when a writer obfuscates and conceals a story line in narrative that is cryptic, with occasional name and incident dropping to keep us pegged. I relegate it to contrived plotting. And the back story section comprised of the genesis of Adair, Fergus and Virgilia in Ireland begged the question of what happened to “show don’t tell?”

I had heard good things of David Malouf being one of the best living writers today and picked up this book, perhaps with higher expectation than I should have. Given the elegance of his writing, I may read one more book of his before deciding whether to give him a pass.

[Greg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very different style of writing to Harland's Half Acre. I found the style of writing Malouf uses in The Conversations At Curlow Creek has a stiff 'colonial' feel. I also didn't like the swapping back and forth in chapters from NSW colonial bush, and 'Ellersley' Ireland. The Ireland of the 1820s described made me long to breathe the open space of the Australian bush.
There is not enough happening in this story, the actual place of the bushranger being guarded waiting till morning. I started skimming over the Irish sections about halfway through the book. I thought the ending was oblique.

[Kyle Borg · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was one of the assigned readings for the Postcolonial Australian Novel Module at the University of Malta.

The text starts off strong and I was immediately drawn in to the hazy setting where we first meet the protagonists of the story. I could already pick up on the subtle hints that strewed the first few pages that hinted a link between these two very different characters.

Sadly, this enthusiasm that motivated me to begin reading soon turned into a yearning for the novel's end.

I could really appreciate the clever entanglement that the two main storylines exhibited as well as the interlace of socio-political issues in Australia during the Victorian era. Nevertheless, the book featured a substantial amount of extraneous text that made the reading experience rather daunting. I found a great amount of text was spent on the description on barren environments.

Focusing on characterization, I found Michael Adair a very well-rounded, 3-dimensional character with a strong motive that justified his actions through the storyline. Contrastingly, I found that there were a few holes in Daniel Carney's personality that sparked questions. I would assume this was intentional in order to make readers investigate more for themselves, however, it is interesting to point out how the underdog or lower social class member is more obscure.

I do recommend the novel for its commentary on the political controversies that still affect the country many years after this novel was set as well as the clever gags and surprises littered throughout the text. It is a work for analysis not necessarily for enjoyment.

[Vera · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Conversations at Curlow Creek focuses on an Michael Adair, an Irish officer in New South Wales and Daniel Carney a bushranger, also of Irish descent, who is supposed to be hanged. Adair spends the night before the execution in a hut with Carney, they talk, and Adair thinks of his past. Most of the book takes place in these childhood/youth memories of Adair, especially on his relationship with his friend Virgilia and his stepbrother Fergus. It’s not an easy read: many, many commas, lots is unsaid or just slightly touched upon, so it’s important to stay focused throughout the reading process. Also the ending leaves a lot of question unanswered, a bit too many for my taste.

[Paula · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dazzling prose,multilayered stories.

[Lark Benobi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Conversations at Curlow Creek is the first novel by Malouf that I've been disappointed in, after three five-star reads--Remembering Babylon, An Imaginary Life, and the masterfully understated Ransom. One consolation I find in the existence of Conversation at Curlow Creek, though, is that this novel, primarily a night-long conversation between two men with interstitial scenes told in flashback, most certainly prepared Malouf as an artist and writer for the task of writing Ransom, which is also story of a night-long conversation between two men, Priam and Achilles.

Here in this earlier novel, though, Malouf's elegant prose trends dangerously close to purplish, and the back story of love and rivalry doesn't hold the necessary dramatic weight to support the life-and-death conversation happening in the novel's present-day story line.

[Shawn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has been absolutely haunting me. I can't get it out of my head.

first reveiw
I think I've been reading too many novels this year that strive so hard to be a smorgasbord of philosophy about everything that stretch out over five hundred or more pages. So, it's nice when this one simply ends at a point where in another novel it would be "Book 1" and keep going.

It still has the fixings: Retelling of unusual childhood with privileged upbringing but lacking proper blood ties. A reminiscent look back at first love and inability to manifest it into a relationship. Years spent traveling looking for the answers within oneself, which is almost invariably found in the extremis of the world via conflict with "man vs. ____". Smattering of behavioral psychology and general philosophy.

But there is a bit of an unresolved mystery here, kind of like The Master of Ballantrae
I mean, it's almost made kind of clear that the man who is to be killed is in fact the missing Fergus from the protagonist's childhood and an unusual hopeful optimism. If you want something more thoughtful and introspective this is for you otherwise it will probably bore you to death out in the Australian outback.

[diario_de_um_leitor_pjv · Rating 4 out of 5]

o que somos? o que diz o nosso passado sobre o que somos agora?
mais uma narrativa única de Malouf

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

In The Conversations at Curlow Creek, two strangers spend the night talking. One, an outlaw, is to be hanged at dawn. The other is the police officer who has been sent to supervise the hanging. As the night wears on, the two men share memories and uncover unlikely connections between their lives. The story takes place in 1827 in New South Wales, Australia, which gives the novel the feel of an American western. The troopers presence in the colony is to round up outlaws, and keep an eye on the aborigine population.

I was immediately caught up in Malouf's beautiful prose, and the situations that brought these men together. But ultimately, the story centers on the background of trooper Adair, and a love triangle from his past. He has traveled to Australia in the hopes of tracking down Fergus, a childhood friend, who may now be going by the alias Dolan. Adair is head-over-heels in love with Virgilia back home in Ireland, but she has always favored Fergus.

By spending the night with doomed convict Carnery, Adair hopes to find out what has truly become of Fergus, AKA Dolan. He could then travel back home to sweet Virgilia with news that his rival is buried under three feet of dusty ground, and that he, Adair, was the best suitor all along.

When the novel journeys into Adair's privileged past, and his unrequited love that he still pines for, I started to lose interest (i.e., eyelids getting heavy.) The beautiful prose, and interesting characters got lost in the background story for me.

[The Final Chapter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Low 4. This novel is set in the Australian outback in the early part of the nineteenth century chating the unruliness of the terrain and those who ventured there. Michael Adair is tasked with overseeing the hanging of a captured bushranger in the wild frontier of New South Wales and without the presence of a priest, assumes a role of fire-side companion to the condemned man, Daniel Carney, on his last night before the execution. Malouf has woven a vivid tale where these men's recollections unearth the possibility that the one's gang leader may be the long-lost foster brother of the other. As such, their Irish roots and their reminiscing over each one's past provide a compelling read, as we learn of a fateful love triangle and wonder at what connections may unfold. Some may despair at an ambiguous ending but the author has left us with a wonderful read, full of sublime prose.

[Lincoln · Rating 5 out of 5]

For my money, there are simply not enough David Malouf novels in the world. He never fails to open doors I’ve not noticed or considered. His writing is beautifully evocative and he can immerse you so completely in a place you could swear you smell the campfire. This is a fine novel but is worth reading for no other reason than the uncompromising glimpse Malouf offers of the massive challenge this country presented for those who first arrived to forge a nation. The Untrammelled, endless wildness that confronted them was so unfamiliar and untameable it’s a wonder they didn’t get straight back on their boats and head home. And the country and it’s isolation serve as underworld and afterlife for those who - in some cases bewilderedly - find themselves cast upon its shores. It’s just so bloody...Australian!!

[Ashley Clark · Rating 5 out of 5]

I know this is controversial to give this book one of my elusive five-star ratings, but this book moved me in the same way that All the King's Men moved me so many years ago. The epilogue might have been unnecessary, but also might have been necessary. The best Australian novel I have ever read.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

beautiful prose... has a way with writing that is enviable... not the harshness of McCarthy, but something more subtle, easy, but still bleak and weary...

[Antenna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Set in the 1820s, this is a gripping, striking and memorable piece of historical fiction. It begins in the Australian outback of New South Wales, where a small band of troopers have the grim task of executing, under the rough justice of the colony, one Daniel Carney, the sole survivor of a gang of rebels, bushrangers as they are called, whom they have managed to track down. Adair, the Irish officer in charge, assumes the role of keeping an eye on Carney during the night, ostensibly to find out more about the gang. Even if you are not immediately hooked by the clear prose which creates a vivid sense of place at the remote Curlow Creek, and of the interactions between the characters, do not be deterred by the moments of violence in the first chapter.

Through a series of lengthy flashbacks, the storyline shifts back to Adair’s very different past. Orphaned as a very young child, he had the mixed blessing of being brought up in a wealthy, if eccentric household, where he formed, in a complex triangle, a close attachment to both Virgilia, an older girl who lives at a nearby country estate and to Fergus, born soon after to the lady of the manor who has taken Adair in. Whereas Adair is cautious and responsible, knowing he has to make his own way in the world, Fergus, the family heir, has a Heathcliff-style charisma and wildness. When this eventually takes him to Australia, where he takes up the cause of the underdogs, Virgilia tasks Adair with following Fergus there to find out what has happened to him. So it is that Adair’s long conversations with Daniel Carney in the last hours of his life are primarily to establish whether “Dolan”, the dead leader of the gang, was actually Fergus, and if so, what were his final motives and actions.

This is the framework of what turns out to be a well-constructed plot with moments of high tension, which is nevertheless secondary to the novel’s underlying purpose. It weaves together insights into the colonial experience from both sides in rural Ireland and Australia - different, yet with certain parallels, and also into human nature in general, and how we are shaped by a complex mixture of fate, chance and inheritance – so that in the course of being bound to suffer or impose “an insufficient law”, a man may come to terms with, or “find” himself.

This novel by Australian author David Malouf has a very poetic quality, which is not surprising since his books of verse began to be published before his fiction. His gift for expressing ideas with great clarity, precision, depth and range is very impressive. He deserves to be more widely known, and this book merits being read more than once.

[Ronald Kelland · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had a lot of trouble getting into this one. In fairness, it got easier as I progressed, so I don't know if the problem was with the book or with me - I may just not have been in the right mindset for this novel at this point of the year.

It is an intriguing concept. Aristocratic Irish-born Australian ranger (Adair) is sitting with a convicted outlaw (Carney) on the night before his execution. As they talk, Adair is brought back to memories of his childhood and young adulthood and the reasons for his being in Australia. This is very good and interesting, but it is a very one-sided conversation, in that while we get a lot of Adair's reminiscences, we get very little of Carney's. I was hoping for more of a parallel structure between the two main characters. We also get some of the perspectives of the other rangers, as they sit about awaiting the execution. While these were interesting, I am not sure how they fit into the overall story of Carney and Adair. The ending if the book is quite good, I don't want to give much away, but it is an interesting take on the the formation and ambiguity of folk legends, cultural heroes and foundational myths. The novel does contain some very good elements, but my struggles with the pacing in the early chapters detracted somewhat from my enjoyment. Three stars seems too low, but I can't go as far as rounding up to four.

[Hester · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exactly my type of book . Beautiful prose and thoughtful exploration on the meaning of freedom and justice in the harsh landscape of New, South Wales two centuries ago. The deep relationship between thoughtful Adair, his companion / brother and rebel Fergus and their intelligent neighbour Virgilia as they grow up together in Galway is compelling ..great choice to limit the setting in time and place .

"What a place this is, Adair thought. . . . God knows what things have happened here and gone unrecorded by men, or are on the way towards us. Will we ever know the true history of it? The secret history, stored away in the dark folds of the landscape, in its scattered bones, of a paradise found or lost."

[John Benson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the first book I have read by this author but I think I will be reading some more of his books. I really appreciated his thoughtful, formal and quiet writing style. In this historic novel that takes place in 1827 in the Australian Outback. Michael Adair, an Irish soldier is sent to hang an Irish criminal, Daniel Carney. On the night before the hanging, Adair and Carney start talking and sharing their stories. Carney's story comes through mainly in conversation, while we find out Adair's through thoughts and dreams. I wish he had presented both their stories through conversation, as the title suggests. Still, the conversations bring out some key issues of their lives and of all our lives. An interesting story.

[Sheri-lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had a hard time rating this book. I feel like it either needed to be shorter or longer — as a short story I have less expectation for fleshed out details and can be satisfied with things left unwritten; a longer book allows for those details and a definitive sense of closure. Sigh.

I feel like this book is perfect for English class literary discussion and essays. It is beautifully written, has many foils in character/setting/etc, and it leaves much open for discussion regarding the untold parts of the story.

The more I think about it, the more I lean to a 5.

[Luciana Burton · Rating 2 out of 5]

I couldn't finish it, although it might be because it is not the specific genre of books I read. To me, the writing was absolutely beautiful, there were so many things I could've put in a quote book or something, but it seemed like the author was focusing so much on the quality of writing that they didn't get the story across very well. It was hard to actually process the writing while reading all of the words, and I didn't follow the story or the plot. I might come back and try to re-read sometime later as I don't like to abandon books in the middle of reading them.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is a decent read. I think the synopsis was misleading. It is more of an officer recalling his past vs two men revealing their pasts. The style of writing is not my favorite. It can be difficult to follow the sentence structure. Overall, I thought it was a decent story with good character development if you can get through the authors need to add in all the detail.

[Gerry McCaffrey · Rating 2 out of 5]

A short novel but quiet deep and the main theme was on the relationship between our main character and a female companion in Ireland. I may not have given the story enough attention to fully recognise the value of the piece.

[Lisa Gibson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Re-read this. Beautiful, lyrical. Thinking about using it for Narratives that Shape Our World.

[Helena · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars - I enjoyed reading this one but the time sequencing confused me at times, maybe I should have paid more attention...

[Belinda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Three and a half stars really. This is beautifully told and told in a lyrical and highly unusual way. It is a little bit boring, in the way beautiful writing is. I'm glad I read it!