Hero's Journey (Paperback) | Released: 16 May 2016

What makes a real hero?
Chip Hilton was an ideal hero for boys growing up in small Midwestern towns in the 1950s and 60s. Chip was the best athlete at his school, an A-student, loving son, and hard worker at the local drug store. He had a gang of loyal friends and was the star player on his high school teams. But Chip was just a fictional character in a series of sports-action books.

John Ritter was a real-live boy who seemed to be as close to Chip Hilton-like perfection as humanly possible. He grew up in Goshen, Indiana, to become a record-breaking All-Star basketball player and captain of Bob Knight's first Final Four team for the Indiana Hoosiers. But Ritter's life took a tragic turn to veer off its story-book script. The perfect boy became a homeless alcoholic.

Jeff Rasley's detective work to find out what happened to his childhood hero is the launch pad for a far-ranging study of how we create, treat, and mistreat our heroes. Hero's Journey taps voices as diverse as Patti Smith, Homer, Shakespeare, the Grateful Dead, and Dennis Rodman in an examination of the cultural shifts in the meaning of hero. The lustrous triumphs and pitiable travails of mythical heroes, like Achilles and Lancelot, are compared to ethical martyrs, like Gandhi and King, and to more troubling champions like Allen Iverson, Mike Tyson, Caitlyn Jenner, and Donald Trump.

The mythologist Joseph Campbell, building on the work of Freud and Carl Jung, explained how archetypal heroes are created in myth and out of legends. Hero's Journey discusses how the Hero Archetype has influenced American culture. Interwoven into the discussion is Rasley's memoir about his childhood heroes and the story of John Ritter's hero journey.

Our heroes exemplify the greatest human qualities and virtues, like courage, wisdom, and compassion. We will tear some of them down as false idols and knock them off their pedestals. Hero's Journey makes the case that we still need heroes, because real heroes reveal the best in us and point the way toward a better world.
About the Author: Jeff Rasley lives on the White River in Indianapolis with Alicia and Bandit. Jeff is the author of nine books. His first published writing was melancholic-adolescent poetry in the Hanover College Fine Arts Journal. Over 50 feature articles in law, travel, spirituality, and human interest followed in Newsweek, Chicago Magazine, ABA Journal, and other periodicals. Jeff dropped out of college, saved money from factory work, then hitch-hiked across the USA. Money earned on a road crew financed travels in Europe and motorcycling from Indiana to Mexico City. Marriage and kids lessened travel time, but he leads Himalayan treks and mountaineering expeditions, has scuba dived throughout the Caribbean, and sea-kayaked in Palau, Tonga, and the Greek Isles. Jeff's commitment to social activism and philanthropy began in high school when he co-founded the Goshen Walk for Hunger. In law school he fought for renters' rights and organized the first rent strike in Indiana as president of the Indianapolis Tenants Association. He was lead counsel on class action suits for prisoners which resulted in the construction of two new jails in Central Indiana. Jeff was plaintiff in a class action requiring clean-up of the White River after it was polluted by an industrial chemical spill. Jeff is president of the Basa Village Foundation, which funds culturally sensitive development in Nepal. He is a director for five nonprofits. He is U.S. liaison for the Himalayan expedition company Adventure GeoTreks Ltd, and teaches philosophy of philanthropy at Butler University. Jeff's BA is from U of Chicago magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, All-Academic All-State Football, letter winner in swimming and football; JD Indiana University Law School cum laude, Moot Court, Indiana Law Review; M Div Christian Theological Seminary magna cum laude, co-valedictorian and Faculty Award Scholar. He has been admitted to the Indiana, US District Court, and US Supreme Court Bars. Jeff describes reading Marcel Proust's Remembrance of Things Past as great an adventure as climbing Himalayan peaks. Contact through: http: //www.jeffreyrasley.com