Punke, Michael

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Punke, Michael

PERSONAL: Male.

ADDRESSES: Home—MT. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Hyperion Editorial Department, 77 W. 66th St., 11th Fl., New York, NY 10023.

CAREER: Lawyer and writer. Former partner in a Washington, DC, law firm; worked on Capitol Hill and with the White House National Security Council.

WRITINGS:

The Revenant (novel), Carroll & Graf Publishers (New York, NY), 2002.

Fire and Brimstone: The North Butte Mining Disaster of 1917, Hyperion (New York, NY), 2006.

ADAPTATIONS: The Revenant is being adapted for film by Warner Bros.

SIDELIGHTS: In his first novel, The Revenant, Michael Punke recounts a fictionalized version of an historic frontiersman of the "Old West." Hugh Glass leaves Philadelphia as a teenager, spends time on the high seas with a pirate, and then heads to the West only to end up captured by Indians. He eventually escapes and ends up as a trapper with the Rocky Mountain Fur Company. During a trapping expedition, Glass is attacked by a bear and badly mauled. Two of his fellow trappers, John Fitzgerald and Jim Bridger, are left behind by the rest of the group to watch over him until he dies. Fitzgerald and Bridger eventually abandon him, but Glass unexpectedly survives. The novel then follows Glass as he sets out on a journey of epic proportions in pursuit of those he believes to have betrayed him. Along the way, he encounters and enlists the help of Indians and learns their way of life, as well as their survival and tracking skills in the wilderness. "A good adventure yarn, with plenty of historical atmosphere and local color," wrote a Kirkus Reviews contributor. A Publishers Weekly reviewer commented, "Told in simple expository language, this is a spellbinding tale of heroism and obsessive retribution."