Crux
A Novel
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- Pre-Order
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- Expected Jan 20, 2026
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
“Tender, immersive, and thrilling." —Gabrielle Zevin
"One of the best novels I’ve ever read about friendship.” —Stephen King
"I can't remember the last time I cared about fictional characters as desperately as I came to care about the beautiful, hilarious and courageous teenage protagonists of Crux." —Elizabeth Gilbert
“Breathtaking.” —Chris Whitaker
In this story of intense friendship and grit, two down-and-out teens escape their lives and chase a different future through rock-climbing -- from the New York Times bestselling author of My Absolute Darling.
Dan and Tamma are two teenagers in their last year of high school in the southern Mojave Desert. One is a gifted golden child, the other a mouthy burnout. Climbing boulders in trash-strewn parking lots during cold desert nights, they seal their unique bond and dream of a life of adventure.
As the year progresses and adult reality looms, they are rocked by change and pulled apart by irreconcilable obligations. Differences of class, talent, and prospects take on new importance; options dwindle, and their decisions grow ever more consequential and perilous. It feels inevitable, finally, that something must give.
With a magnificent gift for nature writing and a joyful appreciation for the redemptive power of friendship, Gabriel Tallent gives readers a rollicking, adrenaline-filled, and soul-searching novel about risking everything to change your life.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
A pair of teenagers learn how to navigate risk—in every sense of the word—in this coming-of-age tale. Dan and Tamma are high school seniors with two things in common: They each come from dysfunctional families, and they both love rock climbing. Dan’s an excellent student but isn’t sure if he wants the future his mother planned for him, while Tamma is a cynical stoner who lives for the rush of climbing. Gabriel Tallent gives a lived-in feeling of intimacy to these two inseparable teens, gorgeously evoking the kind of passionate friendship that can be so unique to that particular time in a person’s life. But as the realities of family and adult responsibilities play larger roles in their lives, their shared love of climbing might not be enough anymore. The detailed accounts of Dan and Tamma’s climbs add colour, texture, and adrenaline to Crux, but it’s the genuineness of these two appealing characters that makes it an unforgettable read.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This tense and staggering tale of rock climbing and family demons from Tallent (My Absolute Darling) explores the cost of following one's dreams. Best friends and high school seniors Daniel Redburn and Tamma Callahan steal every spare moment to climb the rock formations of Joshua Tree National Park. Dan is a straight-A golden child under enormous pressure from his family to shed burnout Tamma and become the first of the Redburns to attend college. Tamma, a lesbian, is a social outcast and troublemaker. Uninterested in school, she dreams of becoming the world's best rock climber. But in a landscape where everything feels "luminous with meaning" to these California desert rats, their families' entwined past bears down hard. Dan's mother, Alexandra, a runaway writer once taken in by Tamma's working-class mother, Kendra, has a congenital heart defect, but the money that could save her life has been set aside for Dan's future. Meanwhile, Tamma's chaotic home life is rife with alcoholism, neglect, and sexual assault, and further complicated by Kendra's long-held bitterness at never doing anything with her own life. As Tamma becomes increasingly reckless in her climbs and Dan contemplates a future without the one person who really understands him, each wonders if there is any "version of oneself other than the self one already finds oneself to be." The answer is in Tallent's novel, a brutal portrait of finding hope in an unforgiving landscape. It's a towering coming-of-age saga packed with muscle and heart.
