Purportedly a novel about the conversation between two men, one an outlaw condemned to be hanged, and the other the officer in charge, this novel is more a soul-search into the life of the main character, the trooper, Adair.

The setting is early colonial Australia and the "conversation" takes place in a hut in the bush, where the prisoner Daniel Carney has been captured. Much of the book is about Adair's former life and his relationships, with the "conversations" playing the part of triggers into remembrances of things past.

The main characters in the book are Adair's friends and relatives. The scenes shift between Australian and Ireland which is the homeland of both Adair and his prisoner. But although both Adair and the prisoner Carney hail from Ireland, we are told nothing of Carney's former life. It is Adair's life that is explored in the "conversations".

Adair has been brought up by relatives in Ireland and has a step-brother, Fergus, who he suspects of having come to Australia earlier and who has it seems, may have become a rebel leader. Adair's interest in the convict lies in the fact that he believes that the convict may have known Fergus, and that he may be able to help Adair in his search for a closure of his complex relationship with his brother. Entwined in the lives of both Adair and Fergus is Virgilia, a young Irishwoman who both Adair and Fergus have known since childhood. Many of Adair's memories in the night of the conversations involve exploring the Adair-Fergus-Virgilia triangle. It is because of Virgilia that Adair is in the colony searching for Fergus and it is clear that he must resolve the circumstances Fergus's suspected untimely end, before he can continue his courtship of the young Irishwoman.

I don't think that "Conversations" is as good a read as Remembering Babylon, but it has a poetic style and the writing evokes the otherwordliness and mysticism of the Australian bush in a way that has become a familiar stamp of Malouf's dramatic style.

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