Climbers: A Novel [Paperback]

M. John Harrison has abjured the high-pitched melodramatics of TOUCHING THE VOID for a microscopically observed novel about a group of climbers... descriptions of the various climbs are painstaking and suspenseful, and Harrison has a sharp ear for dialogue. But most impressive is his acute sense of place... the raw beauty of the Pennines. (Sinclair McKay The Daily Telegraph )

'Stunning.... Harrison makes an intensely poetic and evocative brew of the interstices between sport, passion and obsession. Moments of exquisite surreality rub against others in which you can smell the soil and stone'. (The Times )

The only novel ever to win the Boardman Tasker Prize: 'Sheer brilliance' - Iain M. Banks

Retreating from his failed marriage to Pauline, Mike leaves London for the Yorkshire moors, where he meets Normal and his entourage, busy pursuing their own dreams of escape. Travelling from crag to crag throughout the country, they are searching for the unattainable: the perfect climb. Through rock-climbing, Mike discovers an intensity of experience - a wash of pain, fear and excitement - that obliterates the rest of his world. Increasingly addicted to the adrenalin, folklore and camaraderie of the sport, he finds, for a time, a genuine escape. But it is gained at a price... This dark, witty and poetic novel is full of the rugged beauty of nature, of the human drive to test oneself against extremes, and of the elation such escape can bring.

M. John Harrison was born in the Peak District in 1945 and now lives in London.