Rites of Passage

About the Book

Rites of Passage is a psychological novel exploring realms of consciousness steeped in myth and brittle with reality in a journey traversing a vast landscape of human adventure and psychic peril.

The summer before the assassination of John Kennedy, Richard Mac Cairill enters military flight school at an air base near Phoenix Arizona. The young Air Force officer possesses many trinkets associated with success --- wealth, a sports car, a future of promise. However, Richard’s material fortune is secondary to his bisexual, tangled involvement with two people he loves deeply, his fiancée and his best friend.

But, the most compelling and disturbing feature of Richard’s life is a recurring dream, growing in horror, panic, and physical debilitation with each iteration. The dream masks something so frightening he cannot drag it into memory. Yet, should he fail to confront this nocturnal apparition, death clearly awaits.

To unearth these buried experiences, Richard must rely on a past acquaintance to lead him through the cleverly crafted, manipulative wall of repression. It is a quest nearly destroying both as the barrier shatters to reveal the truth, leaving Richard teetering on the brink of madness, homicide, and self-destruction.

Rites of Passage is both an inward and outward trek in search of the truth about events occurring years before Richard entered pilot training ago.

Like sticks of the I Ching, the lives of unlikely people cross to form an explosive mixture.

In addition to the naive, superficially liberal, Richard Mac Cairill, the reader encounters:

--- Brie, Richard’s fiancée, an exotic and beautiful young woman, who seems gifted with unusual prescience and eroticism.

--- Jonathan, best friend and competitor, studying to become an architect, a body-builder hiding many secrets about his fractured personality and sexual orientation.

--- Quinn Harrison who --- like a Magus --- set it all in motion as Richard’s Gay mentor and public speaking coach, later becoming a Hollywood motion picture producer/director.

--- Brad George, a Navajo lawyer, committed to arming Richard with ancient medicine and talismans to aid him in his quest.

--- Finally, Christopher, a man from Richard’s past, offering three challenges to learn the secret of the dream.

About the Author

Robert Swann Clark graduated college with a B. A. in Political Science. Serving in the Air Force in Europe and the U.S. as a missile combat crew commander, he achieved the rank of Captain. Later, attending law school, he earned a Juris Doctor. Afterward, he worked as a banking executive and financial consultant. Rites of Passage is the first of three existing novels. Two additional works will be published in the months to come. Prior to writing fiction, he expressed his creativity through painting and collage, which continues to serve as inspiration for many aspects of his work. Mr. Clark lives on the West Coast.