Don Quixote had his Sancho Panza. Jo had her Laurie. George and Lennie had each other. Heck, Wilbur had his Charlotte. Throughout the canon, there is a long line of literary duos who inform their stories on a rigging of loyalty that can be stretched to its limits, that sometimes frays, sometimes snaps altogether, bringing everything tumbling down in a heap. These are classic characters that rub up against each other, sometimes in conflict, but always in friendship fixed on a common purpose.

In Gabriel Tallent’s second novel, Crux, we are introduced to a new friend duo: Dan Redburn and Tamarisk Callahan, Dan and Tamma, two teenagers reluctantly on the verge of adulthood—Dan,  a superior high school student with a bright academic future, and Tamma a stream-of-conscious-speaking, cosmic-mess, who has one goal: “…to be the best trad climber that has ever lived.”

And Tamma goes on with her singular self-descriptive way: “The sendiest, thirstiest, baddest… I want to be legend… I want John Long to write a story about me called ‘The Snatchiest Bandersnatch That Ever Snatched.’”

She projects what the press will say about her success: “‘Unsponsored and unknown, this acne-ravaged, emotionally stunted fry cook has been quietly ticking off some of the hardest and most dangerous trad climbs in the world.’”

Dan says, “You’re saying you want to crush so hard you change the world.”

“Yes! It doesn’t look possible. But yes! That’s what I want!”

Tallent’s debut novel, My Absolute Darling, the 2018, 15 Bytes Book Award winner for fiction, also featured a strong, young, remarkable female protagonist who defies all the odds. Tamma Callahan is hewn from the same legendary granite.

Tamma is compulsively dedicated to climbing. So is Dan. The novel opens with the two of them obsessed with sending (climbing/conquering) a local bouldering challenge near Joshua Tree National Park with the name Fingerbang Princess.

“She was thirty-five feet high, chai-colored, glinting with mica and quartz, the edges outlined in chalk.”

Mastering the Princess has been hard on the pair with numerous swan dives between them. They can’t afford a bouldering pad and rely on each other to catch their falls. With varying success.

Dan reached up to catch her and she came on toward him headfirst, her hands extended in a backward somersault. She put her thumb into his eye and he twisted away with her thumb pad catching in the socket, bringing his chin down and reaching to catch her nonetheless, and she squirted out from his grasp and took a header into the dirt.

Crux. It is a curious word. From the Latin meaning cross. In climbing parlance, it is the crucial place on a route. The make or break. Tallent’s characters here face many cruxes beyond the boulders and climbing walls: physical and mental health, finances, family loyalties, and wobbly parents.

Tamma and Dan’s mothers were once tight friends until they failed at navigating the defining moment of their relationship, with the effect of landsliding numerous barriers in the way of their children’s lives. Tamma and Dan look to the climbing routes to stay sane. Barely. Tamma:

Oh yeah! Dung Fu changed my life! It’s like: Wake up and smell the hantavirus, BITCHES! And so I was all like: I want to shake the man’s hand, who climbed it first; I want to play saxophone duets with him out in the desert late at night while on peyote, wearing tiny red track shorts and gym socks pulled all the way up; I want to hear his tales; I want to climb hard and dangerous routes that make you shit your pants! I want to live in caves and eat dog food!

You do?

Not voluntarily…that would be weird! No—I want to be made to eat dog food because I am broke and starving and desperate!

Tamma’s vocabulary is dizzying, and Dan takes it and sends it back down the belay.

Because if you were famous and sponsored you could go places…Red Rocks. Yosemite. Vedauwoo. Indian Creek. Squamish. Be the opposite of your sister, Sierra. You could escape your circumstances. Never see your mom again.

Both of their moms have been emotionally detached from their lives. Dan’s, a novelist who ascended too high, too quickly, and crashed out young; and Tamma’s who, wilted under her friend’s fame and success, never even tried. Despite their moms’ estrangement and their attempt to usher an end to their friendship, Tamma and Dan are devoted to one another.

“All those things are gonna come true,” Tamma said again. “You and me, we’re gonna do some epic shit together.”

I’ve never climbed a cliff wall. Never even looked up and assessed a route to ascend like Tamma and Dan do:

An ugly squeeze chimney hatcheted into the foot of the dome. Above, the chimney tapered from offwidth to hands, then gained a flake on the right. That flake was curtain of stone that had started to break free along its left-hand edge…a place where you were climbing both cracks…then you would commit to the flake…

The way they plan and train and feel out each wall they face is wonderful. The complexity of chasing these trials is inspiring. That they have a friendship that overcomes all their challenges is unequaled. They have each other’s backs—the belay—unwavering, inasmuch as they can.

Tallent tops-out through all the ledges, the dihedrals, and the roofs of this full and generous story. He gears us up and puts us on the dangerous slab and shows where to put our toes and how to trust a domino hold. Most of all Tallent gives us two new unforgettable characters who show us through heart and courage how it is to anchor a hand-jam when all the heavy world is clutched around your ankles.

Dan is the first to precariously send the Princess, but Tamma soon follows as Dan watches:

Calmly, with no sign of effort, she pressed herself up, caught the top, and floated onto the summit and out of sight. And just like that, Fingerbang Princess was done. The cleanest send of a boulder he’d ever seen.

Then she reappeared, standing at the edge, up there on the rock, and screamed. She put her hands between her thighs, bent forward at the waist, and screamed until she ran down out of breath…

Joy at the top. But for these two, young and not quite jaded, there is always a bigger climb, a higher summit facing them down. So.

“We just nut up and go: one scary highstep crux into the rest of our lives.”

Crux
Gabriel Tallent
Penguin Random House
2026
416 pp.
$30

Larry Menlove

Larry Menlove is a graduate of the University of Utah. His fiction has appeared in many venues including Weber Studies, Dialogue, Irreantum and Sunstone. He lives with his wife, children and an old cat in Spring Lake.