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 outstanding Indiana Hoosiers team. After his college heroics, John Ritter's life began to diverge from the expectations of his hometown fans. Real life has turned out much different for John Ritter than his fictional twin.

Jeff Rasley's childhood memories of his storybook and real-life sports heroes are the launchpad for a far-ranging study on 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.