Description
Book SynopsisCameraman Brendan Leary survived the ambush of the Big Buddha Bicycle Race—but Tukada, his star-crossed lover, did not. Numb, Leary returns to combat, flying night operations over the mountains of Laos. When his gunship is shot down, he survives again, hiking out of the jungle with Harley Baker, the guitar-playing door gunner he loves and hates. Leary is discharged but remains in Thailand, ordaining as a Buddhist monk and embarking on a pilgrimage through the wastelands of Laos, haunted by what Thais call pii tai hong—the restless, unhappy ghosts of his doomed crewmates.
This story of healing and redemption honors three groups missing from accounts of the Vietnam War—the air commandos who risked death flying nightly over the Ho Chi Minh Trail, the active-duty airmen who risked prison by joining the GI antiwar movement, and the people of neutral Laos, whose lives and country were devastated.
Trade Review"Makes a strong, significant, even surprisingly unique contribution to the large body of fiction that has emerged from the Vietnam War. For anyone who wishes to fully examine that most emblematic of American wars, In the Year of the Rabbit is essential reading."
-- Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Good Scent from a Strange Mountain
"The sequel to (the) critically acclaimed The Big Buddha Bicycle Race...Rabbit is a profound and compelling novel in its own right….Much of the novel’s interest comes from the unique relationship between Baker and Leary, which is at once loving and tense. The men view the world in ways that are fundamentally incompatible: Baker is, in his own words, “a gunner and a bomb loader” who likes combat and “that nasty feeling—those butterflies in my belly.” Leary is an introspective pacifist. Yet the men bond through their shared experiences in the war…At its heart, In the Year of the Rabbit is the story of a man’s journey to find peace in a chaotic and violent world. The thoughtfulness and careful prose of In the Year of the Rabbit make Terry Harkin’s second novel a thoroughly worthwhile read."
-- Meg Bywater * The Veteran *
"The real deal—epic yet personal... An illuminating journey from lost innocence to agonizing self-discovery."
-- Susan Craig, Warner Pictures
