The year is 1827, and in a remote hut on the high plains of New South Wales, two strangers spend the night in talk. One, Carney, an illiterate Irishman, ex-convict and bushranger, is to be hanged at dawn. The other, Adair, also Irish, is an officer of the police who has been sent to supervise the hanging. As the night wears on, the two discover unexpected connections between their lives, and learn new truths.

Outside the hut, Adair's troopers sit uneasily, reflecting on their own pasts and futures, waiting for the morning to come. With ironic humour and in prose of starkly evocative power, the novel moves between Australia and Ireland to explore questions of nature and justice, reason and un-reason, the workings of fate, and the small measure of freedom a man may claim in the face of death.

'A strange, beautiful novel... It represents a deepening of Malouf's style, offering the reader greater intensity and confirming Malouf's position as one of the most exciting and uncompromising writers now producing novels in English' - Colm Toibin

About the Author
David Malouf is the internationally acclaimed author of novels including The Great World (winner of the Commonwealth Writers' prize and the Prix Femina Etranger), Remembering Babylon (shortlisted for the Booker Prize and winner of the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award), An Imaginary Life and his autobiographical classic 12 Edmondstone Street. His Collected Stories won the 2008 Australia-Asia Literary Award, and his recent story collections are the critically-acclaimed Dream Stuff and Every Move You Make. In 2008 Malouf was the Scottish Arts' Council Muriel Spark International Fellow. Born in 1934 in Brisbane, where he was brought up, he lives in Sydney.

Reviews
The novel opens onto enchanted vistas- memories, dreams, intimations of tenderness and transcendence -- Lucy Hughes-Hallett * Sunday Times *
A compelling and richly rewarding novel -- Helen Dunmore * The Times *
Original and impressive -- William Trevor
Exquisite and intriguing -- Kate Figes * Elle *


Awards
Short-listed for Book Data/ABA Book of the Year Award 1997.



Book Information
ISBN 9780099744016
Author David Malouf
Format Paperback
Page Count 272
Imprint Vintage
Publisher Vintage Publishing
Weight(grams) 192g
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 129mm * 17mm