Gerald Hausman

If Roger Zelazny were alive today, and I tend to think he is, at least in the spiritual sense, for he never doubted that himself. He believed that books were more than books. And that humans were beings of light. I was thinking about Roger last night when I heard that Leonardo DiCaprio was nominated for an award for his performance in a film based on a novel called The Revenant.

How does Roger fit into all of that? Well, in 1992 he and I wrote the novel Wilderness, which was the first historical fiction about two forgotten historical figures from the 1800s. Hugh Glass was one of these and John Colter was the other. Colter, pursued by members of the Blackfeet tribe, was chased 150 miles. He was barely clothed (some historians say he was only wearing a breech cloth). Hugh Glass was left for dead, some say buried, after a bear attack.

Colter ran, Glass crawled.

Colter ran for his life. Glass crawled for revenge.

So goes the ancient tale. Nobody knows for sure how much of it is true and how much is fabulous fact rendered into imaginative fiction. In any case, Roger and I collaborated on the novel about these two adventurous souls who left their imprint on American history.

Now it is a very visceral, imaginative movie which, in a very real sense, puts you there. Rivets or nails you there.

Our novel, I am grateful to say, has run (and crawled over the years, but it has never gone away. Perhaps it is just as N. Scott Momaday said of it: "A valuable and stirring evocation of the American West and of certain original souls who inform its history." Rocky Mountain News called it "A dazzlingly poetic book, a rare reading experience -- reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy's prose."

Beyond the reviews the novel received, my favorite praise quote came from an actual descendant of John Colter who said to Roger and me at a book signing in Albuquerque: "You told it straight, got everything right except for one thing: the ears!" Roger and I laughed. "The ears?" The lady went on to explain that Colter's ears were large, just like hers, and she took off her cowboy hat and showed us.

Over the years Wilderness has survived, just like the mountain men who left their mark.