Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Running Down A Dream: The making of a film

Running Down A Dream: The making of a film

Gorman, Paul

Paperback

Entertainment & Performing ArtsSports GeneralTravel General

ISBN10: 0578693372
ISBN13: 9780578693378
Publisher: Lightning Source Inc
Published: May 25 2020
Pages: 298
Weight: 0.97
Height: 0.67 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
2023 Readers' Favorite Awards - Finalist in Sports Nonfiction

Must Read - Jennie Louwes, Reedsy Discovery

Nostalgic and reverential, beautifully written and rich in emotion. - The Prairies Book Review

...a great story that deserves to be read. - Astrid Lustulin, Readers Favorite

Berkeley, 1973. While hunting for gigs for his Seattle rock band, 23-year-old Paul Gorman spends one unforgettable day with Joan Carson, the Redmond, Washington, high school cheerleader he once had a crush on, now a fearless skydiver. The next day she leaves to go skydiving, and that night, asleep alone in her bed, he dreams she falls from the sky and lands in a heap as a white parachute turns red beside her. The next morning, Joan rides up on a motorcycle without a scratch.

Eight years later, on Memorial Day weekend 1981, both of Joan's parachutes fail over Lost Prairie, Montana. She is thirty years old.

Nearly three decades pass. Then the dreams return. Convinced he met Joan for a reason, Gorman sets out with his wife Susan and a small crew of fellow filmmakers to make a documentary about her life and death. Their search leads to a cult-like band of skydivers, addicted to the adrenaline rush, who built their own airport in the Montana wilderness and crowned Joan the queen of their colony. It also leads to a protective brother and sister who hold the key to a secret Joan carried since she was eighteen, the hidden wound that sent a sophisticated suburban girl leaping out of airplanes again and again, even after two serious injuries. As the pieces fall into place, a stormy love affair, a final year living in a motorhome, and a fight just before her last jump reveal a woman far more complicated than anyone knew, and a death that remains a mystery.

Part memoir, part mystery, and part behind-the-scenes filmmaking adventure, Running Down a Dream follows Gorman from the first phone call to a premiere in Lost Prairie on the 30th anniversary of Joan's death, through dozens of festival rejections to hard-won awards for his documentary Ride the Sky, and finally to an email, arriving years later, that nobody saw coming.

If you enjoyed Into the Wild and Wild, you'll love this haunting true story of regret, fate, and the mysterious death of a woman who found her freedom in the sky.

Paul Gorman provides a most fascinating insider look into making his film about a trailblazing female skydiver...A beautiful and moving true story. - SL - Amazon Reviewer

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