The Revenant — Michael Punke

Already sold to Warner Bros. for a major motion picture, this riveting novel of the frontier evokes such classics as Jack London's "To Build a Fire" and A. B. Guthrie's The Big Sky. Michael Punke's The Revenant tells a story of nearly unimaginable human endurance over 3,000 miles of uncharted American wilderness, spanning what is today the Dakotas, Montana, Wyoming, and Nebraska. Based on the real life of fur trapper Hugh Glass, The Revenant recounts the toll of envy and betrayal, and the power of obsession and vengeance. Punke's novel opens in 1823, when thirty-six-year-old Hugh Glass joins the Rocky Mountain Fur Co. on a venture into perilous, unexplored territory. After being savagely mauled by a grizzly bear, his nearly lifeless body is left in the care of two volunteers from the company—John Fitzgerald, a ruthless mercenary, and young Jim Bridger, the future "King of the Mountain Men." When Indians approach their camp, Fitzgerald and Bridger abandon Glass. Worse yet, they rob the wounded man of his weapons and tools—the very things that might have given him a chance on his own. Deserted, defenseless, and furious, Glass vows his survival. And his revenge.