Summary of A Man Named Dave Novel

“A Man Named Dave” is the last story in Dave Pelzer’s autobiographical novels which published in 2001 and focuses on the story of his triumph and forgiveness. The previous novels are “A Child Called It” and “The Lost Boy”. 

In the beginning of “A Man Named Dave”, Dave Pelzer explained how hard his childhood was when he lived with his mother and how horrible his mother treated him abusively. After suffering 12 years of abuse from his mother, he was survived and free from his mother’s mistreatment then he was entered to the foster system. He starts to work in a young age, to prove his worth to society. His work made him drop out of high school. Then he tried to enlist to the Air Force and tried to become a fireman, like his father was. 

Dave entered to the Air Force. Though he continued doing his job seriously, he felt discourages in jobs that he did not enjoy. Due to his schedules of working, he lacked social skills and failed to make friends.

After several years in the service, he got information that his father lied sick in the hospital. He arrived days before his father died and he realized that cancer took his father. The loss made him feel more hopeless, as he hoped to save money to buy a house for him and his father. Without that goal, he seemed so hopeless and no more had a passion in life.

After several years in the Air Force, he moved to be a crewman on a refueling plane. With this promotion, he had transferred to a base back in his home state of California. He relaxed himself by renting an apartment close to the base. Months later, he fell in love to Patsy, a young woman in his apartment complex.

He never had a love relationship before, so he was a bit shy when he realized that he attracted to Patsy. However, Patsy pursued him continually. Though he recognized their personality conflicts right away, he felt his scarred background damages him, but finally he decided to marry Patsy.

Days after his marriage, his jobs become busier than before. In the deepest of his heart, he feared that he was genetically programmed to fail as a parent like his parents were. However, the birth of his son proved otherwise. He felt very happy at that time. On the other hand, as his son is growing, he became much busier in doing his job in the Air Force than before. It made his relationship with Patsy becomes worse. Then, he decided to retire from the Air Force and transition into life as a motivational speaker.

Finally, however, Patsy asked to break up with him. She refused to support his job as an unprofitable speaker. Then, they decided to divorce. In the process of taking over his own life, including publishing the first two volumes of his memoirs, he met Marsha, who became his wife. With the success of his books, he became a famous speaker. Shortly, after moving to his dream home on the Russian River, he married Marsha.