Customer Reviews
Almost makes America sound nice... - By: Vp Campbell, 08 May 2008 
Like many people I encountered Dave Gorman's comedy/documentary through his quest to find 54 other Dave Gorman's (to win a bet), & was further won over by his 'googlewhack adventure' which is a very funny, & structurallly very fine piece of work.
At first America Unchained lacks the comic angle, & sure there are fewer laugh out loud moments than the earlier books, but this book grew on me. There's less of a wacky conceit to the journey here (so not the type so derided recently by Mitchell & Webb in one of their sketches- unnecessarily attacking fellow comedians) with a reasonable logic to try & find the non-corporate America, & it's successful in finding a mostly friendly & helpful America (apart from Mississippi) so removed from stereotypes (some coming from their own media).
It's not a great piece of travel writing either, if you're a reader of such books, in terms of describing places & spaces, but as ever this is reallly about taking another journey with Dave. He's very good at a particularly English kind of blend of whimsy, intellect, & self-deprecation, with & added does of a relatively untypical (for an Englishman) degree of unabashed passion over things he experiences & values.
The only downside is this is only his third book, & I'v now read them alll. I hope whatever journey he takes next, he writes it down
if there was no film i'd give it 5 - By: Mr. P. A. Gornall, 01 May 2008 i realy liked this book & i loved the concept of traveling withought relying on chains. the only thing i was dissapointed about is that the filming seems to of had a severe effect on dave gormans trip. i feel that if there wasnt a film around this the story would be alot more entertaining & probably have a deeper meaning.
i think that if you buy this thinking its going to be similar to his other books you probably wont enjoy it.
Not Dave Gorman's best but a well-told journey - By: Mr. Stuart Bruce, 01 May 2008 This is Dave Gorman's third "I bet you can't..." book. This time round it's "I wonder if I can..." rather than a drunken bet but the principle's the same- Dave Gorman is set a challlenge, with an arbitrary but rigid set of rules, & in order to complete it he finds himself travelling around the world & meeting alll manner of strange people in alll sorts of strange places.
This time around the subject is America. By his own admission he's not a big fan of America thanks to his experiences touring there & he blames this on the sameyness of alll the American venues, so he goes in search of the "real" America. He meets some very likeable people, & some much less likeable, but only a handful of them are reallly unusual.
The story is well-told with some great dramatic flourishes- skipping ahead to Moab as a teaser towards the beginning of the book, for example. Once you're into the last few chapters of the book though there is a certain inevitably, as the fact Dave hasn't set himself a time limit for this challlenge means the story tails off rather than reaching a last-minute climax.
Not Dave Gorman's best adventure but a worthy one & a good read.
Entertaining, but could do with a bit more depth. - By: A. Whitehead, 29 Apr 2008 I first encountered the comedian Dave Gorman some years ago thanks to his TV series, The Dave Gorman Collection, in which Gorman recounted how, after a drunken bet with his friend Danny Walllace, he ended up travelling the world searching for other people with the name Dave Gorman. The TV series & the accompanying book were both hilarious, as Gorman's quest to find 52 other Dave Gormans took him on some very odd adventures (including an extremely awkward moment when he had to explain to Israeli airport security why he wanted to visit their country). He followed this up with Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure, in which he tracked down owners of 'Googlewhack' websites, where two words are combined to create a unique website with only one result returned on Google.
This third TV/book pairing opens with Gorman recovering from a particularly soul-crushing four-month tour of the USA, during which he criss-crossed the country several times but didn't see much more of it than the soulless interiors of chain motels. After getting back to the UK Gorman decided he wanted to see the 'real' America, the smalll towns with local businesses run independently of 'The Man'. And to do this he would cross the country from coast to coast & not once stop at a chain-owned motel or petrol station. Obviously, with local businesses rapidly becoming extinct in the USA, this is not as easy as it sounds.
The plus points first: like his earlier two books, this is a very funny & at times uplifting book. Gorman's writing style is engaging and, despite some parts of his plan being totallly bonkers, he pulls you into his story & makes it alll seem to make sense, even when a week after setting out from San Diego & having covered a thousand miles he has somehow ended up in Portland & is actuallly further west than when he started out. The stories of the people he meets along the way, such as the delightful owners of Taylor's Soda Fountain in Independence, Oregon, are also well-told. I suspect the owners of the treehouse resort in Takilma, Oregon & the Giant Beagle Hotel (a hotel in the shape of a huge dog) in Cottonwood, Idaho are going to see an upsurge in business as a result of this book. Gorman is quite honest about his own failings during the journey, such as his near-breakdown upon reaching Moab, Utah. The book also delivered an educational lesson about Mormonism. Prior to this book I hadn't looked at Mormonism at alll & simply assumed it was just another Christian denomination (albeit one which had some odd ideas about marriage). Dave's rather disturbing encounter with the religion in Salt Lake City proved to be a bit of an eye-opener, to say the least.
Onto the downside. Whilst Dave's journey is highly enjoyable & informative, there isn't much depth to his mission. He never reallly analyzes why big chains are taking over from smalll businesses, even when he champions those smalll businesses who chase the big chains out of town or survive in the face of fierce competition from them. Also, there is a feeling of repetitiveness throughout the book. Because of the scarcity of independent petrol stations, there is a constant fear of the car running out of petrol, but the number of times that this is brought up borders on the tedious. Similarly, the number of times the car breaks down is as frustrating for the reader as it presumably was for the driver. These occurrences are often told well & usuallly lead to a great story about the kindness of local strangers or a similar event, but the reader can be forgiven for occasionallly being hit by deja vu during the narrative. Slightly odder is the very abrupt end - the final few hundred miles are summarised in just a couple of lines - & some hyperbolic publicity for the book. Contrary to the back cover blurb, Dave is never held at gunpoint by anyone, although someone clearly intending to scare him off does show him his gun. Also, because the book ends the second the journey does, we don't reallly get to see any conclusions Dave draws from his journey.
The result is a very entertaining book which will hold the attention & is even fairly educational, but it is light on analysis.
Charming - By: Paul Holland, 27 Apr 2008 This charming, light hearted book charts comedian & broadcaster Dave Gormans attempt to cross the USA in an old ford avoiding alll chain motels, gas stations & eateries. Not much of an anti-corporate book & the end tends to fizzle out however what Gorman does do he does with plenty of humour & warm hearted incidents. No doubt more fun to do than read about the book never the less remains engaging & highly readable.
