Rabbit Warrior: A Cape Cod Pilgrimage of Healing and Self-Discovery Paperback – November 16, 2016

Lancaster author Janet Calhoun has written an absorbing memoir “Rabbit Warrior”. It recounts her journey of self-discovery and healing during time spent alone in the family home on Cape Cod following the deaths of her mother and older sister.There’s an enticing candor to Calhoun’s revelations which makes it difficult to put the book down as she relentlessly supplies additional details to present the full picture of her state of mind.It reminds me of Agatha Christie’s 1944 fictional best seller “Absent in the spring” about an English woman in her late sixties who is stranded for a few days in a desert train station after visiting her daughter in Iraq. The woman’s aware there had always been something unsatisfactory about her family relationships and that in spite of trying not to she finds she’s continually using the unexpected break for some deep introspection.Christie said the crux of her story was answering the question, “If you have nothing to do but think about yourself for days on end, I wonder what you would find out about yourself?”, and gives us a window into the thoughts of her protagonist as she does precisely that.“Rabbit Warrior” answers the same question. But unlike the Christie character, Calhoun deliberately sets out to analyze why she is so troubled emotionally. It makes for compelling reading as the author who is in her seventies shares memories of each family member as she was growing up and realizes the profound impact they had on her outlook and relationships later on.She draws vivid portraits of each of her three siblings; of her father and his untimely death from cancer when she was 13; and of her domineering mother who was unable, once Calhoun became an adult, to make the role transition from controlling parent to compassionate, willing-to-listen friend. She says, “Mother listened with compassion but always as a parent in charge. As a consequence, her children struggled with self-confidence and independence.”A resolution of sorts is found at each book’s conclusion. But they are very different.Christie’s “Absent in the spring” ends like her detective novels by pinpointing the guilty party. Her heroine divines that all her family’s problems come from her being so destructively selfish. This fills her with a crushing self-loathing and a previously unknown humility of spirit.Not so with “Rabbit Warrior”. No self-recrimination here, Calhoun describes her solitary days of introspection as a healing process that ultimately gives her the inner peace of mind she seeks.Why the title “Rabbit Warrior”? Calhoun says, “Each of us is born with a rabbit’s vulnerability and an innate sense that our emotions and physical survival depend on a vigilant awareness of external threats to our wellbeing”. It took the solitary pilgrimage of reflection in the family home for her rabbit to reassemble what she describes as the disjointed pieces that make up the jigsaw puzzle of her life.

In an era of tell-all books and reality TV, it’s still unnerving for the average person to reveal too much about themselves, their dreams, and dramas. The translucent nature of living in a world that thinks it knows you simply because it has a few data points results in an exhausting and inauthentic existence. While revealing your deepest secrets along with the attendant emotions you’ve been harboring for the better part of forever is a rough and rickety bridge to cross, once you do, the secrets come pouring out like fine Irish Whiskey, purging the pain that held the memory to you and bringing an opportunity to shift nothing less than your entire consciousness. That’s just what Janet Brady Calhoun did and later described in her memoir, “Rabbit Warrior,” a book dedicated to the Self: self-healing, self-actualizing, and self-discovery. Like many affluent middle-aged women, Janet had been shackled by a few of life’s golden handcuffs: wife to an F&M College Administrator; mother of two lovely daughters; a sister in a family of four siblings; and a successful career woman, working, among other things, as the co-chair for Tom Ridge’s gubernatorial campaign and finally as Special Assistant to the Secretary of Human Services in Pennsylvania. Ironically, all left her both fulfilled and depleted. Her father, who she adored, died when she was 12, a death that left her despondent and dependent on her mother for her emotional sustainability. Whether one ever reconciles such a loss is an open question. Despite her father’s success as a dentist, he left her mother with little money, gambling debts, and four children. Possessed of nothing more than an indomitable spirit and an iron will, Janet’s mother pulled the family through, but that period, fueled by her mother’s own warrior spirit, cost Janet, and perhaps all of her siblings their emotional independence. It’s no surprise then that the most brutal blows life dealt Janet came from the deaths of her mother and sister within a short span of each other. All those hurts caused by her father’s death came rushing back, nearly drowning her in their need to be acknowledged and released. So Janet left her home and her husband in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and moved up to Cape Cod for the summer where the family owned a home and where she did her best thinking. She took her journal and some essentials — books; the dream catcher her granddaughter made for her; wine — and headed to the Cape to call her spirit back. It turned out to be a very important summer, possibly the most important one, and it resulted in a brave and open-hearted book about the search for one’s true Self. I must confess that at first I was annoyed. I didn’t really want to read a book about a privileged woman having an existential crisis in her home on Cape Cod when, for instance, one-third of the world doesn’t have access to clean water, but I had promised a book review so I took a breath and read on. The dialogue was a bit stilted and I had the feeling that I was voyeuristically reading over Calhoun’s shoulder as she scribbled in her journal with all its unfettered pain, anguish, and fear of being stuck inside her 12-year old emotional self — plus, she held back, probably out of propriety because nice women don’t tell all their secrets, even to their journals — yet in spite of my objections, I saw what Calhoun wanted me to see: a woman seeking redemption, not from someone else, but by and for herself because she was the only one in the world who could grant it. Courage comes in all forms. It’s not handed out at birth and its not part of our genetic code; rather it’s something earned, and usually, it comes at a great cost. It takes courage to tell your story, the real story, not the one you create for public consumption. Rabbit Warrior is every man’s and every woman’s story. Your facts may be different, but I guarantee your pain shares similarities. Read Rabbit Warrior if you’re interested in how one woman moved some of her own pain offshore.

What a wonderful book! I found myself unable to put it down.A note to the author:Janet, Amazing, just amazing.Thank you!Linda DeLone Hughes

• When I began the book I, frankly, was a little worried. My internal thoughts were something along the lines of, “oh no, here goes another person’s documentation of extensive navel-gazing.” I was wrong.• The success of your book is due, in part, to the commonality of the human condition. Without taking anything from the uniqueness of your family, personal history, and experiences, you nevertheless bring to light issues many of us face. Your journey to potential spiritual solutions help feed reflection and possibilities for the reader.• I am in awe of you, Phil and your daughters for allowing and being willing to, as you say, stand naked in public. That is a wonderful gift given to you by your husband and daughters. That kind of courage which benefits others is rare today. It requires those of us who read your book the obligation to deeply respect and honor the gift given by you and your family.• It is clear despite your public thanks to multiple editors that you are a gifted writer who has been honing her craft for some time. Your use of reflection coupled and interspersed with an accounting of events in your history and the description of your summer alone in the Cape kept me engaged. What is next in your writing journey?Thanks again for inviting me into your world and that of your family. I’m “digesting” and incorporating your insights into my life.