Gabriel Tallent: Crux + Claire Thomas: On Not Climbing Mountains + Helle Helle: They (REVIEWERS: Hannah Kent and Tom Wright)

In this episode, we travel from the Swiss Alps to the quiet strangeness of Danish suburbia and the fierce edges of American literary drama. We begin with the visceral intensity of Gabriel Tallent’s latest novel, Crux, where characters cling to passion and survival with bloodied fingertips. Claire Thomas reflects on art, ambition, and the lure of towering peaks in On Not Climbing Mountains, and Helle Helle's They, a delicately surreal portrait of mothers, daughters, and the lives lived between silences. BOOKS Gabriel Tallent, Crux, Fig Tree Claire Thomas, On Not Climbing Mountains, Hachette Helle Helle, They, translated from Danish by Martin Aitken, Giramondo GUESTS Hannah Kent, novelist, scriptwriter, and memoirist, whose books include Burial Rites, The Good People, Devotion, and Always Home Always Homesick Tom Wright, theatre writer and adaptor; Artistic Associate at Belvoir Theatre in Sydney OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED Olga Tocarczuk, Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead Rachel Cusk, works W.G. Sebald, works Mary Shelley, Frankenstein Henry James, works Rainer Maria Rilke, works James Baldwin, works Katherine Mansfield, works Leo Tolstoy, works Teju Cole, works Muriel Sparks, works Johanna Spyri, Heidi Blaise Cendrars, works Jessica Au, Cold Enough for Snow Harry Matthews, Sleuth John Cowper Powys, Wolf Solent Harry Mathews, Tlooth Solvej Balle, On the Calculation of Volume Catherine Lacey, The Möbius Book CREDITS Presenter, Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh Producer, Kate Evans and Sarah Corbett Sound engineer, Micky Grossman and Roi Huberman Executive producer, Rhiannon Brown