In the Year of the Rabbit

by Terence A. Harkin

Cameraman Brendan Leary survived the ambush of the Big Buddha Bicycle Race—but Tukada, his star-crossed lover, did not. Leary returns to combat, flying night operations over the mountains of Laos, too numb to notice that Pawnsiri, one of his adult-school students, is courting him. 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.

In the Year of the Rabbit, a story of healing and redemption, honors three groups missing from accounts of the Vietnam War—the air commandos who risked death flying night after night 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.

Genres: Fiction

316 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 14, 2021

About the author

Terence A. Harkin earned a BA in English-American Literature from Brown University while spending weekends touring New England with his band, Stonehenge Circus, opening for The Yardbirds, the Shirelles, the Critters and Jimi Hendrix. His play, Resurrection, produced during his senior year, was a winner of the Production Workshop Playwriting Contest. In the US Air Force, despite editing and writing for two underground GI newspapers—Pro Patria Mori and The sNorton Bird—he was asked to write the 1971 history of the combat photo unit he served with at Ubon Royal Thai Air Force Base, Thailand. He won a CBS Fellowship for his screenwriting while completing an MFA at the University of Southern California and went on to spend twenty-five years as a Hollywood cameraman. His credits include Goodbye Girl, The Legend of Billy Jean, Quincy, Designing Women, Seinfeld, Tracy Ullman, MASH, and From Here to Eternity. Working as a cameraman on MASH and the six-hour mini-series of From Here to Eternity had a powerful effect—in both style and scope—on the writing of Big Buddha, a wartime love story filled with the possibility of healing and redemption from the traumas of both love and war.

Reviews

[Military Writers Society of America (MWSA)]

MWSA Review

In his book, In the Year of the Rabbit, author Terence A Harkin has given us his sequel to The Big Buddha Bicycle Race. That story ends with a terrorist attack that kills our protagonist's friends and sends him to the hospital. Brendan's opposition to the Vietnam war and his continued service in the air force grows. He requests a discharge from the army that is not taken seriously. As a combat photographer, he is assigned a mission on a Spectre aircraft which is shot down in enemy territory. Brendan and a fellow crew member are injured but survive the crash and finally make it back to Thailand. This event makes Brendan even more determined to leave the service. While his request is finally approved, Brendan knows he is carrying a lot of emotional baggage he can't handle. He decides to live at a monastery and train to be a Buddhist monk, hoping the mental discipline can help heal him. He does so, but after his training, he believes he needs to go back to the wreckage site to finally make peace with his guilt. As a monk, he has to make the trip with no possessions, surviving off the gifts of food from the people he meets along the way. This is a story of a young soldier who has seen too much and has lost his way.

Review by Bob Doerr (June 2022)

[nancy abramson · Rating 5 out of 5]

In The Year of the Rabbit begins where Terence Harkin’s powerful novel, The Big Buddha Bicycle Race, ends. Following the devastation of an ambush at a race that was supposed to be a fun event concocted by Leary, he must now live with the deaths of his friends as well as his love, Tukada. Leary finds himself hospitalized and in shock. Following his release, he returns to the perilous job of flying night operations over the mountains of Laos. Harkin vividly creates the chaotic internal world of someone who has been to war and is racked by sadness, grief and confusion. When his plane crashes in the jungle, Leary survives along with war-loving good ol’ boy, Sgt.Harley Baker. Together, this odd pair must endure the long hike through the Laotian jungle where they further encounter the mind-numbing depravity of war. Leary is finally discharged from the Air Force, a broken man. He drifts into a Buddhist monastery and ultimately undertakes a journey toward redemption. Leary’s spiritual trek across war-torn Laos is riveting and exquisitely written. Although Harkin’s writing can occasionally be discursive, his telling of Leary’s story is fluid and lyrical. I was swept up with Leary’s fierce desire to make sense of and find meaning in his world. The book is beautifully written and well worth the read. Nancy A.

[Meri Blankenship · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brenden Leary is a musician, photographer, anti-war enthusiast, and basic good guy. Until one night when his helicopter gets shot down. Now he’s still a good guy, but he begins to question everything else he thought he knew about himself. His love interest was killed in the accident and he almost was. Many things he used to think were important to him, now aren’t anymore. With his mental state so clearly divided, he is discharged but does not race home as once thought he would. Now you get a chance to follow him through Thailand, Buddhism, and life.