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- [00:01]
Gabriel Tallent
Welcome to the New Books Network.
- [00:05]
Chris Holmes
I'm Chris Holmes and this is Burned by Books. Here you'll find interviews with writers you already love, like Jennifer Egan and Rebecca Mackay, mixed in with up and coming voices like Alexandra Kleeman and Roman Alam. You'll find us wherever you listen to podcasts, but check out previous episodes@burnedbybooks.com and on Instagram and Twitter BurnedByBooks. Let's start the show I first encountered the work of Gabriel Tallant when his debut novel My Absolute Darling received a blurb from Stephen King saying that the book was no less than a masterpiece. I came to feel the same thing after a harrowing two days of non stop reading. I used to joke with my friends and say that I wanted to recommend My Absolute Darling, but that I wasn't sure at all they should read it. It is, after all, a novel about a young teen girl trying to escape the abuse and violence of her survivalist father. The violence feels real and the depictions of abuse are unflinching, but what makes it unforgettable is its story of friendship, set in the backdrop of the enormous beauty and power of the Northern California coastal region. Reading My Absolute Darling, I was sure that I was encountering something new and different, its sound and feel and depiction of nature and friendship and kinship. And I knew that Gabriel Talent was a writer to reckon with. I had to wait quite some time for his sophomore outing, but that novel, Crux lives up to its predecessor's predecessor's lofty standard. Set in the climber's paradise of the Mojave Desert, Crux is the story of an unlikely and extraordinary friendship between two high schoolers, Dan and Tama, whose lives have been intertwined from their birth, but whose families no longer speak or interact. Holding grudges that still sear, Dan and Tama spend their afternoons trying to ascend a difficult route up a local boulder colorfully named Finger Bang Princess. The bodily violence of his first novel still courses through Crux, but here it is largely self inflicted, with the two teens regularly plummeting to the ground, breaking bones and leaving traces of themselves on the desert floor as their dream of pursuing climbing as a profession becomes stronger and clearer in their waking lives, the realities of their families poverty, sickness, substance abuse, and profound disappointments suppress and stifle their drive. Much like My Absolute Darling, this is a novel about friendship and the bonds that young people make with each other that act as shields against the slings of a world that rejects their idealism and gentleness. Crux teams with the language of climbing and bouldering in a breathless prose that imitates the extremes of pitching oneself from one hold to the next on an unforgiving piece of rock. And the parallel lexicon to that rock climbers buzz is the thing the talent does best, perhaps as well as anyone working today. The rapid fire shorthand, slang, full pop cultural esoteric verbiage of friendship in which no random illusion ever requires explanation. Crux is a thriller, a novel that puts you on razor's edges, gripped by bloodied hands, but its heart lives in acts of generosity and selflessness that do not happen on a boulder. Gabriel Tallant is the author of My Absolute Darling, which was a New York Times bestseller and a New York Times Notable Book, as well as a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize and the John Leonard Prize. Gabriel was born in New Mexico and raised on the Mendocino coast by two mothers. He studied English at Willamette University with a focus on 18th century cultural history. After graduation he led trail crews, scrubbed toilets at Target, worked in the dining room at the Alta Lodge, and bussed tables at the Copper Onion. He now lives in Salt Lake City with his wife, Hattie and their three rambunctious boys. Welcome to Burned by Books.
- [04:25]
Gabriel Tallent
Gabriel Tallant Thrilled to be here.
- [04:28]
Chris Holmes
Well, I've been wanting to talk to you for a long time, so I'm glad that I get to talk to you about this, this beautiful book. Your second novel, Crux is a love letter to the climbing world. Its intense insider knowledge about the sport and its lexicon of holds and moves could have frankly been a killer for a non climber, but you somehow managed to invite us in to make that language powerful, even if we aren't always sure what it refers to. So first, what's your relationship to this world of climbing and climbers? And second, how did you thread that needle of making it hospitable to all readers while signaling to a very specific audience?
- [05:11]
Gabriel Tallent
Well, I, I am a climber. I started climbing. I mean I guess it's like a little hinky. There was my, my high school had just like a, like a short bouldering wall and so I started climbing then but not, not very seriously. There used to be like a bridge and like Mendocino is the worst possible place to climb, maybe the hardest place to climb in the United States. And so, so it was is tough but there was like a bridge where someone had epoxy.
- [05:36]
Chris Holmes
Is it because it's flat?
- [05:38]
Gabriel Tallent
It's not flat, it's just far away from any real climbing. And the cliffs are sandstone so the, the cliffs are just, I mean they're like biscuit, they just, they break apart. So it's, it's, it's a, it's a terrible place for climbing. But once I, I, so I met my wife in college and moved here to Utah with her in 2011. And like fall of 2011 after she graduated and I was like, if we're going to live in Utah, we're going to start climbing. And so like the, the first day I was here, we went out to IME and bought a rack and started climbing. And so early on in our relationship, we were climbing all the time. We started climbing a big cottonwood, which is a lot of sport climbing, kind of like more accessible climbing for beginners. It's on Quartzite, which is a kind of a distinctive golden, hard, glassy rock. And then we moved to climbing a little cottonwood canyon, which is white granite climbing, trad climbing, very intimidating, very old school with like a strong old school ethic to the area. And then started taking trips to Joshua Tree. Yearly trips to Joshua Tree and really, really did a lot of learning out there for track climbing. So I'm not like a good climber. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not a talented climber, but I'm a passionate climber and, and, and climbed a great, a great deal here and in Joshua Tree and City of Rocks. So we're pretty passionate. Like Indian Creek is one of the major destinations close to us here. It's a trad climbing destination like four hours south of us, three, four hours south of us. And so we go down to Indian Creek every week and climb towers and cracks. And it was an essential part of our, of our lifestyle. I would, I would say so that, that's, that's my relationship to climbing. Most of my friendships were climbing friendships. And the second part of the question is how I, how, how I, how I worked the language of that into the book without it being too daunting. Well, I'm glad to hear you say it's not too daunting. It's of course like a, it's of course a concern. I've always loved books that welcome you into a new world like Moby Dick does, that has that feeling, you know, Matterhorn, the Vietnam novel, Garth Greenwell, what belongs to you? Like there are these books that feel like they transport you into another world and like, like you're gonna go deep into that. And I just like, I love that as a writer, sometimes climbing novels don't really give you that Solo Faces is a climbing novel by James Salter. And it never really like scratched the itch for me. It always felt a little distant from the actual climbing.
- [08:27]
Chris Holmes
Hmm. Although I can totally see him writing a climbing novel. I didn't know he had one, but that, that kind of makes sense to me.
- [08:34]
Gabriel Tallent
I would be riveted to hear your thoughts. It's a, it's a book that I feel a lot of hostility towards. But that's.
- [08:43]
Chris Holmes
How is it? Because it doesn't, it doesn't ring true to, to your experience.
- [08:49]
Gabriel Tallent
It rings true. Look, this, this is what I do best is I do rail questions. So it's, here's, here's why I feel hostility to it. It's because it's a very classic climbing novel. Don't get me wrong. It's a great novel. Right. Like, I just feel hostility to it because that's sometimes who I am as a reader. It's a great novel, but it, it, it has a classic climbing stance which is that the hyper masculine protagonist has to leave women and children behind to seek, seek self actualization on the mountains of France.
- [09:24]
Chris Holmes
Well, that's alter, like summed, I mean, indeed, indeed.
- [09:30]
Gabriel Tallent
And I don't know. That's not what climbing is to me. And the vanity and narcissism and misogyny of that, like, is not what I love about the sport. Like, I know that's, that's how some people will approach the sport. And I'm not, I'm not like as interested in that. Right. There's something, there's something Madame Bovary about that. There's a, there's a hankering, there's a, there's a, there's a hating of your life and a hankering after adventure that takes you away from your responsibilities that I, I'm so skeptical of. Like, I, I really worry like when we're abandoning people to seek self actualization, I, I, I'm concerned we're giving out
- [10:10]
Chris Holmes
too much and, and your characters are, they're the most responsible people in their lives, despite being people who, yes, that's a good point.
- [10:21]
Gabriel Tallent
And in some sense, like there are figures like that in the book, but Dan and Tam are the sort of people who get left behind. I, this is a terrible, like, like a, like a tangent to your question, which is how, how do you make the language work? And the answer is I, I started like, I started out with a draft that explained everything because I had this sort of idea that I would take a Moby Dick approach where you would sort of Vamp about everything and really bring someone into the, into the world. I found it really bogged down the story. Like, it quickly becomes onerous. Does that make sense?
- [10:59]
Chris Holmes
Yeah, of course. Yeah. That's the terrible bind is that, like, on the one hand, you have to make sure people understand enough that they can, that they can follow like, whatever, like insiders, language you're using, but on the other hand, you want them to, to experience kind of learning as the characters do and, and picking up terms as they are meaningful in, in the moment rather than just explained as exposition.
- [11:26]
Gabriel Tallent
And I think people are good at that. They pick up slang from context generally. And so I just sort of cut, cut, cut until I thought we got to a place where it was accessible without being, without being taunting.
- [11:39]
Chris Holmes
Yeah, I, I, I think it is, which is remarkable. And I have, I literally know nothing other than that, like, you stick your hands in, in cracks and, and hope you have strong enough fingers and forearms and. Yeah, and that's it, you know, to make it and. Yeah, and I felt like I was there, like, the whole time, and I was excited by the scenes of, of climbing, which are, like, produce a lot of, like, anxiety and, and nerves, both in the reader, but also in the characters. And I, you know, I particularly love the run that Tama has, an indoor climbing competition that she's, that she's in, and, and it was incredibly vivid the way you were able to make those very technical things that are happening, you know, come to life. I want to talk for a second about Dan and Tama's friendship. They've been friends pretty much since birth, and they speak a language that carries all that history and its references and shorthands. It's often vulgar and very, very funny, and it runs at the reader like a freight train with no breaths or pauses, all energy. And I'd love for you to read a section of Tama's dialogue where she's describing part of the history of their families. And then we can talk a little bit about the magic that I think you do with dialogue.
- [13:05]
Gabriel Tallent
All right, here goes. So this is Tama talking. Alex is living with Patrick and Kendra, she's writing her novel. Kendra is raising her first baby girl. Patrick is welding up sculptures in the yard. Lawrence comes into the diner. It's love at first sight, says my mom, Kendrick. Hella handjob, nay sucks cockwell. He sees her and he's all like, oh, lovely Alexandra. Splendiferous as an eagle, golden as the dawn. Be my maiden fair, and I shall buildeth you a cottage in which to layeth your beautiferous head and I will do as odd and sundryth jobs and you shall writeth the great American novel and everything shall be totally fine because you seemeth normal and not ravagedeth with mental illness. You sound just like him. Dan said he knew all this, but this was a thing she did from time to time, thinking out loud, making sense of the world, sifting through their long and varied prehistory of failure, like going move by move through some attempt on a boulder, trying to parse if it could be done, if it were even possible. And it works. They get married. Sexy, broad shouldered, narrow hipped blonde Mormon cowboy born in a log country cabin in Sevier County, Utah, and come out to the old Iron Mission to find love with an apostate novelist. He follows her out of the church. Isn't that sexy? He forsakes God for the woman he loves. He has a mustache and he wears tight blue jeans. He works all day in Palm Springs, putting up parking garages and Best Buys and Walmarts and other things we totally want and which are absolutely worth paving over the Mojave for. And at night he comes back in their empty campsite at the end of a dirt road they call Lifted Lorax Lane, and he fires up a skill saw and builds her house, working by lantern light, smoking cigars, his jeans incredibly tight, his mustache virile, his work shirts unbuttoned. So many scorpions in the lumber. My mom told me that he carried tongs in his belt and he would tong them into a five gallon bucket he had around. Alexandra Redburn gets back from the diner late at night. She's young and she's thin and she's blond and she nips through her T shirts and she is stunningly gifted, however gifted you have to be to be born here. And then 18 years later they're profiling you in magazines with your literary smile and your great big dick sucking eyes. You're an inappropriate person, you know that? I am a deeply fucked up sort of person. The damage goes all the way down, Dan. All the way to the core. I am just a scared girl begging the world for love and the world doesn't love me back. But you have to understand, it's not my fault that your mom has such enormous dick sucking eyes. I saw the profile in Kendra's sock drawer. I just call it like I see it. Anyway, Alexandra comes back to her campsite at night and she puts her typewriter on a chopping block, takes an enormous fucking drag on her cigarette Pours some black velvet whiskey into a tin cup and she does what she has been wanting to do all her life. She writes a novel, Ephedra, a 900 page epic about the desert Mormons and massacres and polygamy prophets, white salamanders in true love. She shows the novel to my mom and my mom is all like, more bodice ripping, more skirt hoisting. And you know what? She's right. Eight months later, they're toasting Ephedra in New York, in Paris, in Los Angeles, in Salt Lake City. They're excommuting her, excommunicating her. She walks a red carpet in Milan, goes to Hollywood and shoots with Vogue in Iowa City. She does orgies with Jonathan Franzen. I never heard that. It just feels true. Does Franzen attend a lot of orgies? I see you reading the Corrections with that steamy little smoke show smoldering from the back cover. You know, he does Dan and the whole time he's like, where are my glasses? I've lost my glasses. And that's because Margaret Atwood keeps stealing them, isn't it? Who hurts you? Oh, you know who hurt me Anyway, your old man is like my Alexandra maiden fair. I always kneweth you could perforce do with this thing. And she goes, put a baby inside me. And he goes forthwith in post haste. And they get pregnant and they have this beautiful baby boy with a gigantic wean. I can't believe you're making me read this section. Strange thing to say about a baby. A stunningly sexy baby with piercing blue eyes and blonde hair and chiseled jawline and shy smile. Just this God, the handsomest toddler. Tamma,
- [17:31]
Chris Holmes
thank you so much. Yes, the reason, the very reason that I had you read it. It is, is. It is so just like the Gigachad baby.
- [17:42]
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- [18:10]
Gabriel Tallent
Experian.
- [18:12]
Chris Holmes
It is so indicative of what you're doing so often with this kind of ecstatic revelry of talk between the two of them. And it's you know, I, I, I don't want to say that it is realistic because it's not, but it is this hyper realistic thing that feels so true to friendship that I like it more than were it like coffee shop captured chat. It is better than the way we talk and therefore it is, it means more to me and it contains the vulgar intensity and the just outrageousness with which true to each other. And so I wanted to, to, to talk to me a little bit about how you came. I mean you were doing incredible dialogue in my absolute darling. You've, you've knocked it up a, a peg in the climbing board of, of your vernacular here. So talk about how you, how you make this hyper realistic friend speak.
- [19:19]
Gabriel Tallent
I just write down the dumb skanky things my friends say.
- [19:24]
Chris Holmes
Oh, so this is just pure realism.
- [19:25]
Gabriel Tallent
No, it's not, it's not exactly pure realism. Did you, did you read There Will Never Be Another you by Patricia Lockwood?
- [19:33]
Chris Holmes
No, Although I like it. I like her.
- [19:35]
Gabriel Tallent
Yeah, this is a wild book. But you know, in it she talks about talking to the screenwriter who's trying to develop her first. Who she's trying to develop her memoir. Priest Daddy and screenwriter is talking about having everyone sort of talk and broken stuttering sentences for the sake of realism. And, and the Lockwood character in, in the novel There Will Never Be Another you is very put off by that because her family speaks in complete sentences. And so she's upset about the idea that pretending that they, they speak in a sort of a gritty realist dialogue of, of, of, of stuttering and omission and breaking off the kind of halting speech that we use in TV to
- [20:21]
Chris Holmes
signal realism, I think Western wing style.
- [20:25]
Gabriel Tallent
Oh man, you lost me there. Don't they speak? Isn't anyone.
- [20:28]
Chris Holmes
No, that swing.
- [20:30]
Gabriel Tallent
Very eloquent.
- [20:30]
Chris Holmes
Yeah, yeah, sorry.
- [20:31]
Gabriel Tallent
Maybe more like the bear or something.
- [20:33]
Chris Holmes
The bear. The bear, yeah.
- [20:35]
Gabriel Tallent
Yeah. It's been a while since, since I've seen the West Wing, though.
- [20:38]
Chris Holmes
No, no, that the West Wing is actually much more like what you're doing. But yeah, go on, go on.
- [20:44]
Gabriel Tallent
So it, you know, isn't, it isn't you, you kind of distill it down, you know, like, like a lot of these conversations are really long and, and, and circular and so it's not, it's not a sort of realist rendering of dialogue because that, that would, that would like be so time consuming to, to, to read. Like I'm, I'm a parent. I read for 15 minutes before falling asleep. Like I want books to move and so that's, that's something that, that's something that I'm prioritizing. Um, it. It is a thing. Like, it is a thing. Maybe I, I, like, I have been racking my brain about this. Maybe I just bring out the skanky and my friends, but like, this is a way that my friends talk. I would say with Tamma, it's like turned up a notch because she's supposed to be brilliant in a way. Like, I want, I want you to see what is brilliant and lovable about Tamma. So you get it. You're like a, there's like a greatest hits quality in, in the sense that it would, they would talk all night. And I'm lifting out some of the fieriest.
- [21:51]
Chris Holmes
You love a feral, genius teen girl who's got like nothing going for her but, like, is so preternaturally smart and, and able to see the truth of other people. You, you love that you're making, you're
- [22:09]
Gabriel Tallent
drawing a comparison between Tamma and Turtle, aren't you? And I worry that it's wrong.
- [22:15]
Chris Holmes
It's wrong. Okay, tell me why it's wrong.
- [22:16]
Gabriel Tallent
But like, I get, I get it. They're both, they're both, they're both girls and they are both very strong willed people. But like, Turtle is silent. Turtle is quiet and brooding and bottled up and like under excruciating tension. And she's careful. She is so careful.
- [22:41]
Chris Holmes
And Tamma's not at all. But would you say she has a kind of like, organic brilliance, especially in her interactions with nature? For the most part. She has this.
- [22:52]
Gabriel Tallent
Turtle is, is. Is brilliantly perceptive and she. But Turtle is more like Daniel. She's a great athletic talent. She's perceptive, she's quiet. She lets, she let someone else kind of talk. You know, I, I think, I think it's like, I think it's like the gender thing, you know, like you want to match the, you want to like match the gender. But I think Tamma and Turtle are very like. Are so. Are so or because Turtle is like, is. Is. Is brooding and like meticulous and Tama is like a risk taker and they both want.
- [23:28]
Chris Holmes
Nat. They both want a kind of mastery over their natural surroundings, which I think is like one of the things I saw drawing them together.
- [23:38]
Gabriel Tallent
Yeah, that's true.
- [23:39]
Chris Holmes
Yeah, but you're right, you're totally right in terms of their, like, affect and, and the way they show their, their intellect. It's their, their oppositional and.
- [23:48]
Gabriel Tallent
Yeah, and Turtle is hostile and misogynist. And, like, pretty, you know, like in. And. And Tamma is, like, vampy and funny and a lesbian.
- [23:59]
Chris Holmes
Yeah, yeah.
- [24:00]
Gabriel Tallent
And, you know, compulsively friendly with everyone she meets.
- [24:04]
Chris Holmes
And kind of friendly even when she's, like, tearing them down.
- [24:09]
Gabriel Tallent
And, like, that's, like, such a tradition among climbers. Is that, like, taking the piss out of you? Humor, you know?
- [24:16]
Chris Holmes
Okay.
- [24:16]
Gabriel Tallent
Yeah. So this is just like, I guess at my funniest. There is a way that people talk, and I think it's something I. I can't speak for all climbers and other climbers have said. Like, no, it's not like this, but, like, I just feel like when you're at the crag, you just hear people being raunchy. Like, you just. You hear it. I think it's because it's like, you're out there, you're dirty, you're messy, you're away from the institutions. It's. Climbing has this, like, strong countercultural streak.
- [24:44]
Chris Holmes
Yeah. Yeah.
- [24:45]
Gabriel Tallent
And so you're trying to capture that. And with. With Tama, you're just. You're. You're trying to just, like, lean into the tremendous joy of that. Because, like. Like, for me, like, I really wanted to take you out climbing in this book. Like, what is it like to come out climbing with my friends? And this is like, a part of it is, like, people will just talk, and they talk about their life in a way that I find so moving and interesting and funny and thoughtful. Like, this thing that she's doing where she's, like, going over her prehistory. My. My friends. My friends do this. Like, my editor was like, no one does this. You know, like, no one, like, Dan would know all this stuff. Like, Tamma would never, never rehearse it. I guess it must be like a. A weird little eddy of culture that I am in.
- [25:35]
Chris Holmes
No, I don't. I don't think so. Because we constantly tell our friends and partners and family members the same stories over and over again that we know by heart, but we add new details into them, and we.
- [25:51]
Gabriel Tallent
You're trying to juice out of it.
- [25:53]
Chris Holmes
Re. Dramatize them for meaning. Exactly. For meaning. And so I think it's very true to form, and it's how you reinforce friendship over and over and over again, is that you give it to these, like, these key core moment memories, and you redramatize them. And so it felt very true to form to me.
- [26:14]
Gabriel Tallent
As for the literal how. Which I don't feel like I've answered yet. We used to have a crack machine in this room. Our basement flooded and we lost it. But a crack machine is just a big simulated crack.
- [26:25]
Chris Holmes
Okay, I thought you were talking about, like, something to make crack cocaine or something. I don't know.
- [26:30]
Gabriel Tallent
Yeah, I just do a lot of crack cocaine and. Get going. No, no, no, no, no, no. It's like a big simulated crack.
- [26:37]
Chris Holmes
Okay.
- [26:38]
Gabriel Tallent
It's like a. It's a horizontal tan and. Yeah, it's a horizontal beam, and you can climb underneath it back and forth. And so I would just like, start writing and then, you know, and then I would just like, climb laps on this thing, trying out, you know, like, literally talking to yourself, like, trying out monologues in your head until you came up with something good. And then. And then you write that down and you do like. I would do like 30, 40 pages of this and then just cut it down to like five pages because you just want to keep what. What's getting you there. So that's. That's. That's the how of it. But a lot of times I'd be out climbing and my friends would say something wild and I would just be like, I'm putting that in the book.
- [27:19]
Chris Holmes
Nice. Amazing. So the. You have a clearly. I mean, between your love of climbing, but also like, your intense desire to represent in great detail, natural spaces, you clearly have a love of nature. And, and. And you attempt to understand, like, our. Our relationship and connection to nature through these, like, monumental experiences with really sort of like, foreboding, dangerous and. And overwhelming nature. And we see that in. In both books. And so I wonder if you'd talk a little bit about the. If there's any tension between what it means to love nature and also in a way, to fear it. Which I think if you're not fearing nature a little bit as a climber, I feel like that maybe you're not doing it right. And in the same way that, like, I mean, one of the most incredible scenes of nature's unyielding power and fear some ness. Is that scene with Turtle and the. In the barnacled rocks when the tide comes in too fast and she's basically almost flayed alive by it. So talk about your experience with nature, how you want to represent it as. As both this thing, a beloved thing, and a fearsome thing.
- [28:42]
Gabriel Tallent
I guess what I think is that life is so lonely without a world that is larger than ourselves and like, like, like larger than people too. Like. Like a. Like a world that. A world that we inhabit. Like, you're not entitled to a harmless. A harmless world that's not even, that's not even what you want. Like you, you want to go out and find out what kind of place it is that we live in. Like you, you want to, you want to find out what kind of place it is that, that, that, that, that we inhabit. When you get away from cities and places and, and, and, and, and, and other people, right? Like, and the opportunity for adventure rests on the idea that it is all, isn't always going to be safe. Like, if you could make it all safe, you would lose something so profound. You would lose something more than you ever hazarded in all the risks you ever took. You would end up with like a crustables version of the world, right? Like a processed, tasteless, crustless thing. So, so I, I, I guess it doesn't need to be reconciled at all. Its beauty and its dangers are, are, are part of its, are part of its glory. Our part of our part of what is so wonderful about it. And it is a great, it is the great privilege that we have to like, sometimes go out and see those things for, for ourselves and.
- [30:19]
Chris Holmes
Hmm, that's lovely. I like that very much. I, I love your, these two friends and how unlikely they are in a lot, in a lot of ways they're, you know, already like Montagues and Capulets with their, with their family feud and they, she's an out lesbian with very little interest in at least kind of structured school. And he's this hetero guy with a driving academic mind that, that functions really well in those structures. And yet their love for one another is so full and complete and it's made up of loyalty and respect and care. They don't desire each other physically, but their relationship is intimate in a way that almost feels like it could be sexual just because of how much they know each other. They know their bodies. They've seen each other in, in ways that make them intimate, in ways that they aren't yet with, with other people. And so it's sort of like almost like a proto sexual experience. But I want you to talk about just their closeness. The un, what, what you loved about creating such an unlikely friendship and, and what it is that binds them.
- [31:36]
Gabriel Tallent
I don't even know where to start. There's something great about friendship. Like this is, this book is to a certain extent this book. And I am interested in the great sources of meaning and worth in your life which people will tell you to leave behind. They may not say it's meaningless, but it's inconsequential. Like you. You do the, the Romeo And Juliet comparison. But for romantic love, we have great models. We have great models for taking a risk for a romantic love, Right? And we have great models for taking a risk for a career. But, but taking a risk for a friendship is much, is so much more tenuous because.
- [32:22]
Chris Holmes
Have you read Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, the Gabriel 7? That's, that's a good example of, of that.
- [32:30]
Gabriel Tallent
Yes, absolutely. I, I, I, I, I love that book. I, I, I wrote, I wrote to her that, that I, that I love that book and sent her a copy of, Of Crux.
- [32:40]
Chris Holmes
Oh, wonderful.
- [32:42]
Gabriel Tallent
Yeah. She's writing a friendship novel. I am also trying to write a friendship novel, but like, it, it's friendship and it's climbing. It's these, it's these, it's these things that, that can be essential, I think, about your life and which people will tell you that you have to leave behind in the process of growing up. And so that's important about the closeness. There's another thing about their dynamic, which is that Dan is a classic climber. Like, this is a cla. The, the haunted young man with strong hands and golden hair, who's brilliantly good at everything he does, is, is like a type. And, and Tama is a little bit outside the type of, of climbing. She's like, like, she's a type of, of climber that I don't want to say is like prejudiced against, but there's pressure. There's pressure against, right? Like, we celebrate climbers like Dan and, and there, there's an idea that you should be sort of like a, like a samurai, like a warrior monk, right? Like you should be calm in the face of danger. A lot of climbers that I climb with are like brilliant, courageous, wonderful climbers, but they're sort of like weepy and a hot mess and scared all the time and talkative, right? It's outside the mold. It's outside the ideal. And, and so there is this disjuncture between climbing culture, between sort of the legend that I have it handed down to me and my, my experience of it. And so I really wanted to write that type of climber. It's not always gendered, I know, very weepy guy climbers, right? But I wanted to write that type of climber into the story. And so their friendship is something maybe a little subversive, right? Because, Because Dan is a climber embraced by climbing tradition. And Tamma, who is sort of desperate and afraid and intuitive and emotional, is, is, is, is, is a claimer a little bit shunned in the narrative. Does, does this make sense? You're, you're trying to play with tradition. You're playing with, you're playing with traditions of, of, of of the sport. Does that make sense?
- [34:46]
Chris Holmes
Absolutely.
- [34:47]
Gabriel Tallent
So their friendship accomplishes something that you, you want to do, which is that, like, I love climbing. You're trying to embrace what is great about it and you're, you're trying to maybe critique or attack what frustrates you about, about the narrative, right?
- [35:04]
Chris Holmes
Oh, yeah, very much. Okay.
- [35:06]
Gabriel Tallent
Yeah.
- [35:07]
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- [35:36]
Chris Holmes
And so like Tama, for example, when she's at the, the climbing meat that she enters, she, she kind of runs into one of her climbing, you know, ideals. I forget her name to remind me Paisley colors. Paisley. Paisley, yeah, yeah. And Paisley is just like pure strength and like, has had all the, like, the privileges that, that a climber can have in being set up to be great at it. And Tama has had to do it on just pure perseverance. And, and Paisley at one point says, I don't even think you could do a pull up. And yet she just like, through sheer, like will is able to like, you know, intuit and, and use her body in a way that she can draw on strength. But it's not strength drawn from privilege. It's not strength drawn from classical climber things that you're supposed to be good at. So that's one of the things I found remarkable about her.
- [36:36]
Gabriel Tallent
Yeah, yeah. The, the figure of Paisley, that's a very, very controversial figure in the sport. This sort of pampered, influencer style, you know, full face of makeup climber that has really, has really racked the sport with, with, with disputes.
- [36:55]
Chris Holmes
But you make her, you make her so wonderfully appealing. So even though she's controversial, she's so lovely and such a great secondary character.
- [37:05]
Gabriel Tallent
I can damp about that.
- [37:06]
Chris Holmes
I want to talk about the crux itself. You know, the, the title and its many meanings. I didn't know that it, it had a meaning in, in climbing until I read this. And it's for climbers. It is the toughest part of, of a route or ascend, and it's the thing that you have to get through to be able to ascend, whatever you're, you're, you're working your way through. Obviously we think of like the crux of the situation or the, you know, the, the fundamental thing that we must reckon with in order to come to some understanding of something. And so I wonder if you'd talk a little bit about how that operates doubly in the novel and, and why the climbing crux is something that maybe opens up for us the way we think about these cruxes in our lives. Off the, off the boulder, off the wall.
- [38:02]
Gabriel Tallent
Yeah, I guess for all the climbers that I know, climbing taken to an extreme, really pursued so often becomes like a metaphor, a lens for understanding other problems in life, because problems that confront us in climbing do such a wonderful job of distilling certain ideas of risk. So there are just, there are layered elements here. So there, there's, there's, there's the crux, the, as you said, the most difficult part of a climb playing a little bit on that is the idea of a crossroads, a crossing. So this is, you're at a, you're at a crossroads in Dan and Tama's life even as they face cruxes on a particular climb where they've, you know, decided if we could do this climb, maybe we're good enough to embark upon our dream of being of like getting money and getting a van and going out into the desert and trying to make a run at being professional climbers. And there are certain cruxes in the book which are trying to not exactly work as metaphors, but to illuminate element of risk. So I guess a problem is that I think as Americans, we oftentimes think about risk as something we undertake. We take on risk as if by not doing something risky, you, you, you take on no risk. Right. As in the sort of the binary choice between, between, between risk and safety. As if we decide to go climbing and you take on the risk and if you don't go climbing, there's, there's no risk. But that's not, that's not true. Ahead of Dan and Tama, if they do nothing, are lives they don't want and around them are ruined adults. Adults. You know, I, I, I think that this is true, that, that, that, that if you, if you, if you don't fight for the things that are important in your life, you can end up with a joyless life, a life you do not love, a life that has no aliveness in it. And so that's what's ahead of Dan and Tama, right, is, is this future that is stark and terrible to them, and they have to find another way. They're questing after that, right? And so they're, they're trying to get good at climbing to see if this is something they could pursue, see if it's a way out. And so there's risk on either way. The climbing is risky. They don't have enough equipment, they don't have the bouldering pads to adequately protect it. Going out every night and climbing in the dark this way is scary and painful and you could end up, you could end up very hurt, you could end up dead. But if they don't do it, what is there for them, right? And so, see, you're, you're trying to bring that into relief. And so there, there are these cruxes. There's, there's a, there's a crux on the boulder that they climb, where you climb to a sort of stance and you can stand there for a while, but you can't stand there forever. And the longer you stand, the more you're running out of strength. And so the trick of the crux is to commit through it. But the next move is so tenuous, like people imagine. I think when people imagine climbing, they imagine that you grab something, you grab a hold, you grab the next hold, and you know whether or not you can hold it. But that isn't true. You grab the next hold and everything in your brain recoils against the idea of committing to this hold. It's like you cannot hold that hold. That's like your brain will just scream this at you. It feels impossible. And so that's what you're committing against. There isn't some sort of starkly true sense in which you're climbing and you know what you can hold, not when you're at your limit. And so, and so you're up there and the next move is so scary, right, that it spooks you off and you go back to the stance and you try it again and it spooks you off and you go back to the stance and it, it, it has this effect that it makes you stall until you fall off the rock, right? You're, you're trying to illumine something that sometimes there is something that feels safe, which is just stalling at the last good stance, that feels safe, but it can be a dead end. That's what you're trying to do with the crux is you're trying to illumine the decision making and Just throw it into relief. But you're not trying to just like, lean into this idea, like, pursue your dreams in a kind of sentimental way. I really want to underline how treacherous this is, how scary they could pursue this dream and end up broken, alone.
- [42:26]
Chris Holmes
It comes up. The crux for me also is this question, and you, you raised it before of like, what is a meaningful life? And what are you willing to risk for a meaningful life? And they see in front of them examples like Dan's mom. She. She did take a risk, and she, you know, worked to write this novel. It became a bestseller, even though she was sort of doing it while waitressing and, and raising a young child. And, and then that risk doesn't pan out after that. Like, she's unable to. To touch the creative spark in a way that is meaningful to her in the same way that it was before. And, and, and it essentially kills her. I mean, like, little bears out of the profession. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And. And literal things kill her, but. Or are killing her, but. I mean, that kills her. And then Tama, by contrast, sees this a kind of, like, life of, of drudgery and mistakes and disappointments and responsibilities that pile upon her and other people, and that's just not something she wants. And so we have these two examples of, like, crux choices. And, and both seem haunted by disappointment and, and risk. And so I, I wonder if you'd talk a little bit about how they relate to what seemed like the impossibility of. Of, you know, getting beyond, you know, what they had.
- [43:55]
Gabriel Tallent
Yeah, you're just trying to complicate it. You're just trying to complicate it. I think I, I said this before, but adventure stories, which is at its heart, are prone to a simple misreading. Pursue your life. You, like, pursue your dreams, and everything will work out. And Alexandra is there to complicate that. She's also there to play with genre. Right. In other climbing novels, in westerns and adventure stories, we have the heroic figure of the. The person, like the protagonist in Solo Faces who leaves women and children behind to seek self actualization. Alexandra does this. Right. And so you're. You're playing. You're playing with Chandra, but Alexandra is not the protagonist.
- [44:38]
Chris Holmes
Hmm.
- [44:38]
Gabriel Tallent
Right. Like, you're. I'm. I guess I am in conversation with that trope, that trope that has us leave behind our responsibilities. And I'm so, I'm just like, I'm so deeply skeptical of this, of this model of, of. Of. Of greatness. Right. And so you're just, you're you're, you're, you're trying to complicate it on every side so that the decision making is hard. I grew up like I, I wrote this book. Let's see, I wrote this book in the, in the midst of the pandemic right after we'd had a kid and we were sort of surrounded by despair. And many of the most brilliant authors in my cohort were in the process of despairing out of the profession. Like losing, losing this thread. Authors far more talented than I will, will ever be, losing the sense that it matters. At the same time, I have a kid and I am ecstatic with the sense that it does. Kids believe fearfully and the meaningfulness of the world. Hmm. And so, and I had like written a failed climbing novel. Like I wrote a huge 900 page book that, that didn't work. And the reason it didn't work is because it didn't have a strong sense of what actually mattered about climbing. It was a lot about writing at the kind of cutting edge of the sport. And it, it felt, it felt empty. And as I was holding Hayden, like for the first time, I was thinking a lot about what I would articulate to him. Matters about the world. And I would tell him that the world does, that the world has meaning, that there are things here that matter. But it's not climbing at the cutting edge of the sport. Right. Like, you don't love your kids because they climb 5:15, right? I'm glad for Connor Harrison. I think it's fantastic. He's just, he's just sense, sense some very strong climbs. But like, that's not why you love your, that's not like what, you love your kids. Right. And it's also not what you're trying to do as a parent. Like, as a parent. You're not the best parent in the world. That's not the narrative. You're just trying to be the best parent that you can be. And every way that you come through matters for this kid.
- [46:50]
Chris Holmes
Hmm.
- [46:51]
Gabriel Tallent
So there's, there's meaning that we can find here. But the quest after greatness I have only ever seen destroy people. I have seen people reach the summit of their careers and end up empty and alone and not alive to any of it, wanting nothing but more. Hmm. Right. They leave, they left everyone behind seeking self actualization. They found greatness and there was, there was like nothing in it. Right? And so you're chasing that. You're chasing, you're chasing the idea like these are kids with a dream and you're Chasing the idea that, like, dreams can come true, we can make lives of meaning. There is a good life out here somewhere to be found. But there are dangers on every side and there is no easy answer. Yeah, see, you see, I'm like, I'm, guess I'm trying to, I'm in conversation with the genre.
- [47:46]
Chris Holmes
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I, I, I like that quite a bit. Gabriel, before I let you go, I would love to know a little bit about some things that you've been reading and loving recently. I know you have little and sometimes having con a consistent reading life or writing life during that time is, is hard, but are there some things you might want to recommend to my listeners?
- [48:11]
Gabriel Tallent
Yeah, I wanted to recommend Exhibit by Ro Kwan and Margo's Got Money Trouble by Rufy Thorpe, which is, which is a, is also, I guess, like Crux is a little bit sneakily a book about art. Rufu Thorpe is doing that in like a, like a more metafictional way that that book is, is sneakily and funnily and, and meta fictionally a book about art in ways that are very provocative and thoughtful and, and what about Exhibit by Araquan? Yeah, like not even sneakily a book about art. A book that is just about art. It's about a blocked photographer seeking her muse, considering whether or not to have children and trying to, trying to become unblocked.
- [48:58]
Chris Holmes
Yeah, I mean, we didn't talk about, like, art, but I, I felt like the, in, in your book, the parallel between, between writing and, and climbing was there for sure. And, and trying to kind of think about the world in both kind of fantastical imagined ways, but then also having to deal with like, very concrete realities.
- [49:22]
Gabriel Tallent
And yeah, climbing becomes kind of a good metaphor for how to do anything hard. It's just like, it lends itself to that. And you know, I didn't aspire to be a professional climber. I aspired to be a writer. And so you're writing a little bit about what that was like, right? Like, Tam and Dan climb the way I wrote. Like, I don't climb the way they climb. They, they're climbing the way I wrote. Hmm. Right. Like you're, you're writing a little bit about what it was like to be young and pursuing an artistic career.
- [49:52]
Chris Holmes
That's fantastic. That's a great way for us to wrap up. And thank you for these recommendations, Gabriel and I. I really want to recommend that my listeners run out and get Crux by Gabriel Talent. Yes, it is a book about climbing, but it is a book about a meaningful life and sharing in friendship things that are so deeply rooted in us that sometimes our friends are the only ones that we can, we can talk to them about. And you'll, you'll get to encounter Gabriel's extraordinary way of these friends talking to one another. And I'm so happy that I got a chance to talk to you after loving your first novel and now really loving your second.
- [50:36]
Gabriel Tallent
Thank you so much.
- [50:41]
Chris Holmes
Well, that's all from me for now. My thanks to Gabriel Tallente for coming on to talk about his second novel, Crux. You can find links to purchase Crux and all of Gabriel's recommended books at the website burned by books.com there you'll find all of our previous episodes, links to buy a podcast T shirt and ways to get in contact. As you listen. Take a moment to rate the show on itunes, Spotify and and now YouTube or wherever you find your podcasts. Until next time, this has been burned by books.