Gabriel Tallent is making a return with his first novel in more than eight years.
Riverhead will publish Tallent’s Crux next year, the press announced in a news release. It will be the author’s second novel, following My Absolute Darling in 2017. That novel, about a teenage girl struggling to escape the emotional and sexual abuse of her father, was a New York Times bestseller and a finalist for a Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Prize for best first book in any genre.
In a starred review, a critic for Kirkus praised the novel as “a powerful, well-turned story about abuse, its consequences, and what it takes to survive it.”
Crux, Riverhead says, follows the evolving relationship between two teenagers, Dan and Tamma, who bond over rock climbing in the Mojave Desert. “With a magnificent gift for nature writing and a joyful appreciation for the redemptive power of friendship, Gabriel Tallent gives readers a rollicking, adrenaline-filled, and soul-searching novel about risking everything to change your life,” the publisher says.
Tallent announced his new book on Instagram, with a picture showing an advance copy of the book propped up on a rock against climbing gear. “Guys! I wrote a book!” he wrote. “It’s about these two kids trying to become something like real climbers in the southern Mojave. They’re broke, they’re desperate, they’re climbing sketchy boulders without pads, and shit goes down.”
Crux is scheduled for publication on January 20, 2026.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
