Terry Johnston
It's been almost fifteen years since Terry Johnston died in Billings. My wife, Sue, and his wife, Vanette, were each holding one of his hands. He died at a young age, of cancer, after writing best-selling novels, one after another, that dealt with the fur trade and the Indian wars. His spectacular sales and income were based on mythic fiction about the West. It was often florid and overwrought, but nonetheless powerful.
People from all over the world gathered at his funeral. I was there. It was an amazing tribute to a man whose work was largely scorned by academics and critics and other writers. He would not let his work be edited. On one occasion I was his editor, and he rejected everything except corrections of his spelling. But I was not alone. He was difficult. At the same time he had a great heart and a genius for promoting his work. When he sold books, he would don tawny buckskins, spread out a handsome buffalo robe and some Indian artifacts on a large table, and soon would be surrounded by people laying out good money for a signed book. Or, often, half a dozen signed books.
He made a lot of money for Bantam and St. Martin's, and in turn lived a comfortable, affluent life. He acquired a fine understanding of both the fur trade and the Indian wars, and would organize expeditions to battlefields, which only added to his luster.
His secret was to make his historical characters mythic, larger than life. He grew into his vocation over the years, and eventually was writing powerful and disciplined novels that did not shy from questions of life and death, and our purposes on earth. He foresaw his death, and in his final novel, which appeared within days of his dying, he wrote about the death of his central character, Scratch, and facing death bravely. At the time of his death, his doctors and nurses gathered in his room, and his wife, Vanette, read the passage in his new novel about his demise, and there were tears as his caregivers said goodbye to him.
My relationship with him was troubled, but as he lay dying in his hospital bed, unable to speak, we clasped hands and held on, and in that brief passage we set our reservations aside ever more.
Sue and I would visit his grave in Billings on each Memorial Day. It was often burdened with flowers.I don't get to Billings any more, but I know where his grave is.
People from all over the world gathered at his funeral. I was there. It was an amazing tribute to a man whose work was largely scorned by academics and critics and other writers. He would not let his work be edited. On one occasion I was his editor, and he rejected everything except corrections of his spelling. But I was not alone. He was difficult. At the same time he had a great heart and a genius for promoting his work. When he sold books, he would don tawny buckskins, spread out a handsome buffalo robe and some Indian artifacts on a large table, and soon would be surrounded by people laying out good money for a signed book. Or, often, half a dozen signed books.
He made a lot of money for Bantam and St. Martin's, and in turn lived a comfortable, affluent life. He acquired a fine understanding of both the fur trade and the Indian wars, and would organize expeditions to battlefields, which only added to his luster.
His secret was to make his historical characters mythic, larger than life. He grew into his vocation over the years, and eventually was writing powerful and disciplined novels that did not shy from questions of life and death, and our purposes on earth. He foresaw his death, and in his final novel, which appeared within days of his dying, he wrote about the death of his central character, Scratch, and facing death bravely. At the time of his death, his doctors and nurses gathered in his room, and his wife, Vanette, read the passage in his new novel about his demise, and there were tears as his caregivers said goodbye to him.
My relationship with him was troubled, but as he lay dying in his hospital bed, unable to speak, we clasped hands and held on, and in that brief passage we set our reservations aside ever more.
Sue and I would visit his grave in Billings on each Memorial Day. It was often burdened with flowers.I don't get to Billings any more, but I know where his grave is.
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