The Revenant

In 1823, fur trapper Hugh Glass is travelling with an expedition through the upper Missouri and Rocky Mountain borderlands when a grizzly bear mauls him. Believing that he cannot survive, the company leaves two men to remain until his death; they take his rifle and equipment and abandon him. Glass begins an extraordinary crawl and overland journey towards the nearest trading post, sustained by practical knowledge, endurance and the desire to confront the men who left him.

Punke’s novel draws on the frontier legend of Glass while grounding it in the hazardous economy of the Rocky Mountain fur trade. Rival companies, Indigenous nations, river travel, hunger and exposure shape a landscape in which survival depends on fragile alliances as much as individual toughness. The result is both a revenge narrative and a historical adventure about the commercial expansion that drew trappers into contested western territories.