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Book Review
Publisher: Random House
Tue, 4 January 2005
by: Tyz
I don't want to give much of the story away, as the most wonderful part of this book is watching it all unfold. This true story starts rolling when Danny Wallace places an ad in a London newspaper asking for people to "Join" him by sending him a passport photo. Wallace did this out of boredom, just to see what would happen. He never would have guessed the result. He winds up the leader of his own cult, where he meets many strange folk, and becomes a Belgian celebrity, in his relentless pursuit of 1000 Joinees.
This is the second book from Danny Wallace, but his first solo effort. His first book (written with comedian and British television personality Dave Gorman), kicked off a BBC television series called "Are you Dave Gorman?". Both of Wallace's books are part of a growing genre where the main participant gets involved in a bet about a pointless pursuit, then winds up going to extreme lengths to see it through. This was kicked off a few years ago by Tony Hawkes' "'Round Ireland with a Fridge". This was a great first effort by Hawkes, but his subsequent releases have lacked the spontaneity of his original – they started to feel like Hawkes was just in it to write another book. "Join Me" does not suffer the same fate. This story is obviously close to the author's heart and every note rings true.
Wallace's Norwegian girlfriend summed up these adventures perfectly when she called them "Stupid Boy Projects". Between Gorman, Hawkes and Wallace they have tried - Meeting 52 people with the same name; Hitchhiking around a country carrying a fridge; Playing tennis against the soccer team from an eastern European country; and Starting you own cult. They may be stupid projects, but the charm is that so many of us would LOVE to be involved in them. These men have done things that we all could do – but we lack the enthusiasm, the time and the credit card limit to let our fancy spirit us away.
Wallace is not only an extremely gifted comic author, but he can hold the readers interest in his absurd tale for nearly 400 pages. The great thing about the book being a true story is that the clichés you expect to appear don't – and the things you would never believe could happen, do. Wallace is a very likeable character who is more likely to criticise himself than some of the weird and wonderful people he meets during his quest.
Wallace's cult has a simple mission – do random good deeds on a Friday. If you had to join a cult this one would have to be pretty high on the list huh? As their pamphlet points out "mass suicides are, at best, frowned upon". What have you got to loose? Well it turns out that Wallace does have a lot to loose and he must learn to sacrifice some of the things he cares about in order to keep "Join Me" alive.
Late last year, Wallace was in Australia promoting the book and drumming up support for his "collective" (he doesn't like to use the word cult). They still exist and can be found all around the world now. They have a web site (www.join-me.co.uk) if you are interesting is joining a group of people who just like to do good deeds and make people happy, check it out.
If you liked this book, then try these –
"Round Ireland with a Fridge" – Tony Hawkes
"Are you Dave Gorman?" – Dave Gorman & Danny Wallace
"Dave Gorman's Googlewhack adventure" – Dave Gorman. (I haven't read this one yet, it has just been released in Australia
by: Tyz
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