Are You Dave Gorman?

by Dave Gorman

Book Overview

'A magnificent tale of obsession and adventure' The Independent

After a heavy night of tequila, flatmates Dave and Danny set off on what turns out to be a 24,000-mile journey to meet all the other Dave Gormans in the world. They visit Scotland, Israel, America, France and Ireland. They even hold a party in London where 50 Dave Gormans attend, including two women who have kindly changed their name via deed-poll. Silly, but engrossing,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0091884713
• ISBN13: 9780091884710
• Release Date: January 2001
• Publisher: Vintage/Ebury (a Division of Random
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.0" x 7.8"

Customer Reviews

Entertaining Adventure! Couldn't Put it Down! Had a lot of Fun Reading This!

This is a very entertaining and fun to read book written in the style of two separate author diary entries recounting the tale of following a bet to track down 54 people with the same name as one of them. Dave Gorman and his reluctant flatmate Danny Wallace have a drunken bet which results in them waking up on a train pulling into Scotland from London on a quest to meet a man who coaches a small town soccer team. They have never met him before, have no idea what he looks like, just that he coaches this team and his name is Dave Gorman. Just before arriving at the field Danny ponders the question of how do they even know the team will have a home game. Dave hadn't thought about this, in fact he hadn't thought about what he would actually do when he meets his namesake. He did bring a camera though. The fact that they haven't really thought the plan through is what makes this quest and the many subsequent quests to meet people named Dave Gorman hilarious as a lot of the funny stuff is what goes wrong. Dave Gorman is determined to meet the target of 54 Dave Gormans, a number determined by Danny by the number of cards in a deck, including jokers. Danny reluctantly accompanies Dave along the way, very much annoying and putting his relationship with his girlfriend Hanne in severe jeopardy. I've previously read all of Danny Wallace's books (all written after this) so was interested in tracking this co-authored book down and was not disappointed. Being a co-authored book it is a little bit different to those reads but not that much. Dave Gorman writes slightly different to Danny, more closer but not quite at a stand up comedian speech style where as Danny has his journalistic trained style and they both mash extremely well together. Although I wouldn't put this is the same masterpiece league as Join Me or Yes Man that Danny wrote on his own I would still rate Are You Dave Gorman? five stars. This book lacks the take a look at yourself and change yourself for the better motivation that those two books have but it is still a fun adventure. If you've read Danny Wallace and the Centre of the Universe, this is the same sort of thing as that but obviously a lot longer in length. As well as the text there are also a few pages of photographs in the middle of this book about their adventure. In subsequent published Wallace books these have moved to be in the section of the book that the story is currently about which does make a bit more sense so you don't find out about stuff before you've read it. You just have to look at these photographs after you've finished the book! I really enjoyed this book and will definitely be looking for the stuff Dave has written on his own as well. I've already ordered Dave Gorman's Googlewack Adventure, can't wait for it to arrive! If you haven't already done so definitely get a copy of Join Me and Yes Man by Danny Wallace along with his short story adventure Danny Wallace and the Centre of the Universe. Th