Gabriel Tallent

I wasn't seeking a novel about the intense platonic friendship between two young rock climbers, but here Crux is, and she’s a beauty

Gabrielle Zevin, author of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

Tender, immersive, and thrilling, with memorable characters who feel unruly and fully alive. Gabriel Tallent depicts the natural world and the existential difficulties of being a human within it, with depth and grace

One of the best novels I’ve ever read about friendship between a young man and a young woman ... exciting and tension-filled

An adrenalized, heart-stopping, stomach-lurching ride of the highest stakes

Elizabeth Gilbert, author of City of Girls

A breathtaking, thrilling and unforgettable story of friendship, of hopes and dreams against a reality so harsh it broke my heart

Chris Whitaker, author of All the Colours of the Dark

Rowdy, electric … Tallent initiate[s] readers into the subculture of climbing, the teenagers’ consciousnesses and … their tender hearts.

Ferocious, poetic ... and almost insanely bighearted ... its writing is monster-audacious

Profound and stunning ... will make you question yourself and every one of your beliefs

Liz Nugent, author of Strange Sally Diamond

Gabriel Tallent's last name is no misnomer. With CRUX, he has delivered a beautiful novel, with fully realised characters that made my heart soar and fall in equal measure

A towering coming-of-age saga packed with muscle and heart

There are books we like well enough to recommend, but there are a very few - To Kill a Mockingbird, Catch-22, The Things They Carried - that we remember forever. To my own shortlist I can now add My Absolute Darling, by Gabriel Tallent The word masterpiece has been cheapened by too many blurbs, but My Absolute Darling absolutely is one

Stephen King, praise for My Absolute Darling

An outstanding book that could be this year's A Little Life

Thrilling. A sharp novel about youth in conflict with dreams, nature and reality

[Crux's] raw and indomitable spirit is intensely magnetic

Second novels to get excited about include… Crux (Fig Tree, February) is a portrait of friendship and thrill-seeking between two young climbers in an impoverished California community

The Guardian – Books to look out for in 2026 – fiction

Tallent’s greatest achievement is to convey the appeal of something so dangerous, the ecstatic aliveness” a climber feels on the rocks. –For all the fear, it was the greatest, most wide-open, breaking-apart feeling in all the world.” At moments in Crux , I felt that sensation too

Dan and Tamma are two Californian teenagers growing up dirt poor in the shadows of the Joshua Tree National Park, one of the world’s great rock climbing meccas. Their mothers had once been teenage waitresses and best friends until their paths diverged. Now Dan’s mother spends her days locked in her room, her dreams squandered and all her hopes pinned on getting her precociously clever son out of town and away to university. 
 
Tamma’s mother holds no such ambition for her mouthy, queer, truant-playing, snaggle-toothed daughter, who everyone but Dan believes to be a troublemaker and no-hoper. But Tamma and Dan are fuelled by dreams of becoming legendary rock climbers, of devoting their lives to summiting the most challenging climbs and defying all the expectations, both good and bad, that others have for them. 
 
Climbing at sun-up, on cliff faces that test their bodies to the limit, is where their friendship is forged. It’s also the one thing that gives them hope. But as their final year of high school unfolds and their climbs become ever more dangerous, and their home lives ever more extreme, it’s inevitable that something is going to snap...

Gabriel Tallent

Praise for Crux

I wasn't seeking a novel about the intense platonic friendship between two young rock climbers, but here Crux is, and she’s a beauty

Tender, immersive, and thrilling, with memorable characters who feel unruly and fully alive. Gabriel Tallent depicts the natural world and the existential difficulties of being a human within it, with depth and grac ...

One of the best novels I’ve ever read about friendship between a young man and a young woman ... exciting and tension-filled

I wasn't seeking a novel about the intense platonic friendship between two young rock climbers, but here Crux is, and she’s a beauty

Tender, immersive, and thrilling, with memorable characters who feel unruly and fully alive. Gabriel Tallent depicts the natural world and the existential difficulties of being a human within it, with depth and grac ...

One of the best novels I’ve ever read about friendship between a young man and a young woman ... exciting and tension-filled

I wasn't seeking a novel about the intense platonic friendship between two young rock climbers, but here Crux is, and she’s a beauty

Tender, immersive, and thrilling, with memorable characters who feel unruly and fully alive. Gabriel Tallent depicts the natural world and the existential difficulties of being a human within it, with depth and grac ...

One of the best novels I’ve ever read about friendship between a young man and a young woman ... exciting and tension-filled

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