How to find someone in Australia?

Ok, this may be one of the stranger requests here, but I'll toss it out anyway.

Googling my own name a little while ago to see what came up I discovered that "I" was a character in a book, self-published in 2009. The author is Irish-Australian, but the book is set in Norway and he's apparently visited Norway quite a bit.

The name could just be picked out of the phone book at random, but since there are only 5 people in Norway with my combination of first name and surname I'm pretty curious as to why he picked it, and if I (or any of my name sisters) had actually met him at some point. Part of this is because this book is set in places I've been, in the mountains, and it's a sci-fi book which is a genre my whole family read a lot of. So it wouldn't be that surprising if he'd met either me or my parents, talked about sci-fi and picked the name after that.

But googling him I find a few tweets and a bit of his writing from 2009, but after that - nothing. He seems to have vanished and the email on his web page doesn't work. He looked like he was in his sixties, so it is possible that he's ill or has died, I guess.

I don't want to sound like a stalker, but now that I'm actually reading the book I'm getting more and more curious. So how would you go about finding a complete stranger, last known to be living in Australia?

Can you contact his publisher?

I'm going rto give it a try, but I'm not sure they really know him. It looks like he's used an online service which helps authors publish their own books inexpensively.

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Originally Posted by TrekDianna

Can you contact his publisher?

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I was thinking that too, but since the book was self-published...


Maybe HE'S a stalker!

Actually, checking out his bio, it looks like he visited Norway between 1965 and 1970, and I was born in 1969 in Mexico, where we stayed for one year after that.

So as much as it would be fun to think that he'd met me by chance and decided I was the perfect model for the lovely and intelligent mathematician in his book (I'm not kidding!) it's not very likely.

Or when do authors usually decide on names for their characters? I would think early on, because it would be awfully hard to write about someone without giving them a name.

I'm overthinking this.

It is such an interesting situation I can see your interest in it! My name is quite unusual as well, if a Google search is done with my full name, I am the only result that comes up. Indeed, in North America there are only about 20 people who turn up if you search for my last name. I certainly understand why\how this got your attention, and how cool is it that your namesake is such a cool character!

You could write your own series of stories with alternate endings about how this could have happened ;)

Australia here...message me & let me know more info..i could try and do some searching down this part of the hemisphere for ye :)

Sounds better than my fictional namesake who is the southern belle heroine of a bodice ripper ;)

Ahaha, Eden, that sounds fun but embarrassing :-D

My current fictional namesake is a character on a TV series from the 80's that has been recently remade.

When you google me, it dominates the results giving me good anonymity.

Of course, my maiden name is mine and only mine. No other in the whole world (through all of history - that's what you get when one's grandfather makes up one's last name!). ;-)

My married name is not particularly common (this is not the case with my maiden name, which is both a common Scandinavian first and surname). There's an artist in Canada with my name and on a few occasions old friends/classmates looking for her had found me (assuming that a Canadian could have easily moved to MI, just hours from the border).

Here's were stuff gets small-world. I looked at my name on FB and there is a girl maybe a year or two younger than my son with my name. They will be in school during HS, if not next year. She is also a patient at my allergist's office. She lives just a couple of miles from us.

Kirsten - that is weird!

I have another odd coincidence... I used to make beaded jewelry and for awhile, owned a url that was myname.com. I gave it up because I really wasn't doing anything with it. Here is where it gets weird. The website exists and the woman who owns it sells jewelry (that I like but totally different from the stuff I made) AND lives here in Portland, Oregon. Her name is my name but she is much younger than me. Freaky!

That is nuts...almost as nuts as my typing were instead of where, above. Sheesh.

I've read at least three novels over the years in which a fictional character leaves his/her book and walks out into the real world. Iph, are you sure you aren't fictional? ;)

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Originally Posted by nuliajuk

I've read at least three novels over the years in which a fictional character leaves his/her book and walks out into the real world. Iph, are you sure you aren't fictional? ;)

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*snork* :-D

My alter ego seems to be a lot more appealing than I am, so in that case I've fallen on hard times.

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Originally Posted by Eden

Sounds better than my fictional namesake who is the southern belle heroine of a bodice ripper ;)

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Or mine, who's an Australian glamour model turned TV "reality star". :eek:

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Originally Posted by lph

My alter ego seems to be a lot more appealing than I am

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I find that hard to believe! I think you are very interesting, exciting, educated and funny and the fictional character probably pales in comparison. :)

Aw, thank you GLC. And right back atcha! :-)

even if he created the character way before the name....you can still take either the worst or best of it and call it your own!!! I’ve gone both ways depending on the read/mood!!

Good on you for taking the best of the character...it’s now yours :)