BookBrowse Reviews Crux by Gabriel Tallent

BookBrowse:

Gabriel Tallent addresses friendship, coming of age, and the traps of capitalism—all in the context of a love affair with rock climbing.

This review is available to non-members for a limited time. For access to our digital magazine, free books,and other benefits, become a member today.

It's senior year of high school, and while many of their classmates might be focused on finding a job, applying to college, or enlisting in the military, Dan Redburn and his best friend Tamma Callahan are almost entirely focused on a different problem. In this case, the "problem" (a rock-climbing term describing the series of moves required to "send," or complete, a bouldering route) is a boulder nicknamed Fingerbang Princess. The Princess is notable because it's the only sizable rock the two friends can easily drive to during the limited windows when one or the other of them has access to their parents' car.

Dan and Tamma are self-taught climbers, free climbing without ropes, helmets, or crash pads, wearing holey second-hand climbing shoes "stained brown inside with someone else's blood" along with crummy old jeans and cutoffs. The opening chapters of Gabriel Tallent's sophomore novel Crux find Dan and Tamma repeatedly returning whenever they can to the menacing solidity of the Princess, even as the rest of their lives begins to feel increasingly unsteady.

First, Tamma's older sister Sierra has another baby and, after an accident leaves her to care for a medically fragile newborn alone, Tamma steps in as a second caregiver, capably taking care of her niece and nephews so her sister can keep her job. Then Dan's mother, Alexandra, suffers a relapse of a potentially fatal heart ailment, one that could be treated only through a potentially risky second surgery that might not work but that would certainly bankrupt the family. These two medical crises highlight not only the economic fragility of both families but also the stakes for Dan and Tamma's futures.

Alexandra and Tamma's mom Kendra were once best friends in this same rural California town, but their lives diverged when, while still a teenager, Alexandra wrote two bestselling fantasy novels and left Kendra behind to work dead-end jobs, lose her beauty-queen looks, and hook up with a series of increasingly unpleasant boyfriends. After her congenital heart problem and subsequent post-surgical depression rendered her unable to write, Alexandra returned home to raise her son but, years later, remains overwhelmed by resentment and regret and estranged from her former friend. She's made it clear, though, that Dan is destined to one day leave this place—he's an excellent student, and unlike Kendra, his parents have saved at least a little money toward his college education.

While Tamma might not dream of college, she does fantasize almost constantly of living life out in the desert and free, making just enough money to climb full-time the way her idols, old-school dirtbag climbers, once did: "Live in a vehicle. Sleep in the wilderness. Work, but only to save up enough money to keep climbing. Own little, buy less, and see wild, beautiful places while there are wild, beautiful places left." Tamma's long-shot entry in a climbing competition highlights just how unrealistic this dream has become—though she might possess some innate talent and certainly has the drive, she lacks the coaching, technical gear, and home gym setups that virtually every other aspiring professional climber seems to access so easily.

Tallent's novel returns again and again to the trappings of capitalism and the gnawing anxiety of economic insecurity, to the question of whether it's even possible for Tamma and Dan to find anything resembling emotional safety and security without giving in to the pressures to conform, to find themselves, as Dan characterizes it, in "purposeless lives they don't understand, lives they don't enjoy, forced from one thing to the next … working jobs they hate for a life in which they find no meaning."

What sustains them through all of this uncertainty, of course, is the strength of their friendship, a platonic relationship (Dan is straight and Tamma takes great delight in proclaiming her lesbian crushes in often hilariously profane terms) that might center on their shared love of climbing but has, over the course of many years, grown far more profound than that. Dan's college essay—about how his feelings for Tamma and his love for climbing are intertwined—is genuinely moving, as are the ways in which the two friends show up for one another through a variety of family and personal crises.

Some readers may grow disoriented at the sheer volume of climbing jargon used in the novel, especially during the many lengthy, detailed passages describing the friends' climbing attempts. Those unfamiliar with the sport might choose to rely on one of many online glossaries of climbing terms, or they may, as I did, find themselves simply going with the flow, realizing that in the end, the novel uses climbing as a way in to bigger questions about growing up, sustaining or letting go of seminal childhood friendships, and navigating one of life's first great cruxes—when the path you choose can make the difference between a euphoric summit or a shattering fall.

This review first ran in the February 11, 2026 issue of BookBrowse Recommends.