Following the journey of a grieving woman who distracts herself with research of famous names of the places she visits of her father's birthplace of Switzerland.
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Award-winning writer, Claire Thomas has created a captivating novel of ideas with the support of a prestigious Swiss arts foundation, both heartfelt and ambitious, probing ideas about art, grief and relationships (and, yes, mountains too!).
This ambitious novel follows a grieving woman who distracts herself with research on famous names who had connections to Switzerland, journeying on a train through her father’s birthplace, Switzerland. Drawing on and referencing a great deal of actual historical and literary sources, this novel is told in a curiously impersonal tone. The writing is exquisite.
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Meet Claire Thomas
Claire is an internationally acclaimed, award-winning author of the novels ‘The Performance, ‘Fugitive Blue’ and her latest, ‘On Not Climbing Mountains’
Visit Claire Thomas' site to learn moreOn Not Climbing Mountains is a tender and compelling novel from the internationally acclaimed author of The Performance. Beautifully conceived and deftly crafted, it is an exhilarating feat of storytelling, concerned with the fragilities of the natural world, the pains of grief and memory, and the endless reverberations of art.
The effect is to capture the ways our lives perpetually touch and move on from those of others, and the experience of a moment in time – what Virginia Woolf calls “moments of being”.
The mountains, though they are typically a figure of the terrifying sublime, offer her comfort and a sense of connection to other people who have been similarly captivated by them.
We follow Beatrice, our solitary narrator, as she journeys on train through her father’s birthplace of Switzerland. Longing to be ‘beside the point, outside time, somehow untethered to the measurable’.
Thomas creates a book focused on the endurance of art, like her previous award-winning novels.
On No Climbing Mountains is Published by Hachette Australia
‘On Not Climbing Mountains is a beautiful novel, itself a series of waiting rooms, a series of moments captured in time. It is also a love letter to the mountains, perpetual signs and symbols. Of what? Of so much.’
– The Conversation, Published review 2 March 2026
‘Claire Thomas reflects on art, ambition, and the lure of towering peaks in On Not Climbing Mountains…‘
‘ … this is the year’s best novel. Claire Thomas has created a perfect and ingenious story – I felt humbled with joy and anguish as I read each perfect line.’