Crux - Gabriel Tallent

A heartstopping story of friendship, thrill-seeking and defying expectations: the explosive second novel from the bestselling author of My Absolute Darling

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 their town and away to university.

Tamma’s mother holds no such ambition for her difficult, mouthy, snaggle-toothed, truant-playing, queer younger 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 - ‘sending’ - the most challenging climbs and defying all the expectations, both good and bad, that others have for them.

In their last year of high school, climbing - before sun-up each morning, out in the desert where cliff faces test every inch of their bodies to their limits and extract a high price in pain and blood - is the one thing that gives them purpose and hope, and where their friendship is forged. But as the year unfolds and their climbs become ever more dangerous, and their home lives ever more extreme, it’s inevitable that something is going to snap…