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