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Questions for John Grogan
Q:When did you decide to write about your childhood and your relationship with your parents as the subject of your subsequent book?
A: For many years I knew I wanted to write about my childhood. I was born in 1957, so I was growing up in the middle of all the turmoil and social unrest of the 1960s and early 1970s. It was a pretty eventful time. But that’s just the very first section of The Longest Trip Home. It was only in the last few years that I began seeing the book as more than a growing-up memoir. My childhood was part of the story, but of equal importance was the often funny and sometimes painful struggle I made as a young adult to break free from my parents’ influence and find my own place in the world. I realized pretty quickly my courtship of my future wife, Jenny, was central to this part of the story. And then, as I entered middle age and my parents their sunset years, I saw that time was running out to reconcile and reconnect with them. I ended up writing the book in three parts: Growing Up, Breaking Away, and Coming Home.
Q: How do you think readers will relate to your story?
A: Well, we all belong to families. We all have to deal with those messy, complicated, often infuriating dynamics that it seems no family is without. All of us, too, must find our way free of our parents’ orbit and to our own place in the world. And we all must come to terms at some point with our parents’ mortality--and our own. After I wrote Marley & Me and was going around the country talking about it, countless readers came up to me and said nearly the identical thing: “It was as if you were writing about my life.” I hope readers will find the same relevance and touch points in The Longest Trip Home.
Q: Do you ever visit your old neighborhood?
A: I go back at least once or twice a year. My mother resides in a nursing home not far away, and my family still owns our childhood house in Harbor Hills. The neighborhood has changed dramatically in the thirty years since I left home. Nearly every waterfront home --lovely in their day but considered modest by today’s standards--has been torn down and replaced with opulent mansions. The houses away from the water, such as the ones in which my friends Tommy, Rock, and Sack grew up, are largely unchanged, but the cars parked in the driveways, mostly European, are a far cry from the made-in-America Chevrolets and Fords that were the order of the day when I was a kid. My childhood home has changed not at all; it’s almost like a museum relic. Same kitchen cupboards, same linoleum floor, same bathroom tile. I cannot visit the old homestead or walk those neighborhood streets without being flooded with memories, a lot of good ones and some bittersweet. Thomas Wolfe was right: you can never go home again. Not easily, at least.
Q: Your parents were tremendously devoted to each other, and yet they sound like they were definitely a case of opposites attracting. How were they different?
A: My father was shy, quiet, and bashful. He was serious and meticulous and a horrible dancer. My mother was just the opposite, gregarious, funny, spunky, the life of any party, and light on her feet. Mom loved to pull pranks and tell stories; Dad was incapable of teasing someone and loved to listen to her stories. She was in bed before ten o’clock most nights; he seldom hit the sack before one a.m. Dad would hang a picture on the wall by measuring to the thirty-second of an inch and using a level. Mom would squint through one eye and drive a nail in wherever the spirit led her. But they both had generous and kind hearts, and they shared a deep, life-long devotion to their faith and to God. As the expression goes, the family that prays together stays together. For my parents, that certainly was the case. Their faith was the pillar that supported their marriage for nearly six decades.
Q: How did your parents influence you as a parent? What life lessons did you learn from them?
A: Growing up, I never once doubted my parents’ love for me. Even though the words “I love you” were seldom spoken in our house, especially by the men, there also was no question about that love. Their actions, their concern, their worry, their amusement at their children’s antics--even some of the more egregious ones--all spoke to their strong love for each other and their children. And it was an unconditional love. Even at times when I knew I had disappointed them deeply, I never wondered about their love for me. They taught me that every child deserves the security of knowing he or she is loved unconditionally. As a parent, I’m trying to follow in their footsteps that way.
Q: Your father wasn’t able to witness your success. What do you think he would have thought?
A: My father died in December 2004, while Marley & Me was still in the manuscript stage. Dad was always the biggest fan of my work, even my very first college internship at a community weekly paper called, of all things, The Spinal Column. He religiously clipped and saved my newspaper columns and magazine articles. I know how proud he would be of me as an author. At the same time, I am certain I could not have written The Longest Trip Home while he was still alive. As I’ve said, I believe you shouldn’t tell a story unless you can tell it honestly and openly. If I knew my father would be reading it, I don’t think I could have done that.
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Rated by buyers
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Grogan's latest book is a candid memoir of his child- and young adult-hood. Those who have read Marley & Me will reconnect with the author as he tells engrossing stories about his life before marriage, kids, and pets. It's an easy read, told through the eyes of the author as a young man growing up in Catholic household during the evolution of the psychedelic era. It takes place during a very distinct time in American social history, when kids spent entire summers outdoors with their friends and dogs, and parents had high expectations of children and commanded their respect. Grogan recounts childhood boyish adventures, experimentation, independence, family and social influences as he transforms from an awkward pre-teen in a new neighborhood, to a confident and self-assured adult. Chapters are broken down into short stories that build upon the general theme of the memoir, which is practically an autobiography. Whether read in small bits or in a single-dose, you'll enjoy connecting with Grogan and getting to know him as he experiences personal growth during some of the most confusing times in a persons' life. I highly recommend this book and will encourage friends, family, and colleagues to read it.
Rated by buyers
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Just like Johnny Grogan, I was one of those "good Catholic boys." I could relate to almost all of it - the very first confession and communion, the stinging rulers and strict discipline of the teaching nuns (in my case the School Sisters of Notre Dame), the family rosary nights on our knees in the living room during Lent, the altar boy sacristy and sanctuary shenanigans, the confusing onset of puberty with its secret struggles with the sin of "self-abuse" and the half-truths of weekly confessions, and then, finally, as a young man, the guilt-wracked break from all of it. It's very obvious, with the publication of THE LONGEST TRIP HOME, that there's a lot more to John Grogan than that "dog book" which (justly) made him famous. Marley, that notorious "world's worst dog," barely merits a mention in this richly textured memoir of growing up Catholic and working middle class in a northern Detroit suburb. Like me, Grogan attended Catholic school for nine years. His years at the Our Lady of Refuge parish elementary school were mostly happy, with his childhood chums, Tommy, Rock, Sack and Doggy. But his transition to Brother Rice, a prestigious Catholic high school in another town was neither happy nor easy. After a year of this lonely exile, his parents - always perceptive when it most mattered - allowed Grogan to transfer back to West Bloomfield, the local high school where his friends had all gone. This was the beginning of his semi-stoner phase of adolescent rebellion, marked by brushes with local law enforcement and clashes with school officials. During this time he also learned to lie glibly to keep his parents happy. Yes, the good Catholic boy was learning to be bad. Grogan holds nothing back, he is painfully honest about everything in this book, which is precisely what makes it so good! He tells of his very first high school kiss, a battle between tongues, lips and metal braces, which leaves him temporarily scarred - and made me laugh out loud. There are more such stories, of teen parties and lost virginity, of newfound popularity, of childhood friends drifting apart. But that's really all just in the very first part of the book. The second part - college (CMU, where he cleans up his act and graduates with honors), work and finding true love - is equally honest in all the humor, heartbreak and pathos that is youth. But it is unquestionably the third part of the book that moved me the most. In it, Grogan struggles mightily to reconcile his differences with his still extremely religious parents, and finally, the wrenchingly sad portrayal of his father's final illness. There are a few stand-out scenes in this third, final portion of the book, although all of it is eloquently and heartbreakingly told. One is the evening that John gets out his camcorder and spends two hours interviewing and filming his father, hurting from the tortures of chemotherapy, as he talks about his life, some parts of which the son had never heard.
"For two hours Dad talked as I recorded. He described the early blissful years of their marriage in a one-bedroom apartment in Detroit with a cardboard box for a dining-room table. He described their very first house, on Pembroke Street in Detroit, and how he built a sandbox in their tiny backyard ... He filled me in on everything he could think of that came before the point where my own memories began. Then he said, 'I'm feeling a little tired now,' and I turned off the camera and watched him, cane in hand, slowly climb the stairs to his bedroom."
Another hard scene to read is John sitting at his childhood home one night alone with his alzheimer-ravaged mother, his father in the hospital. It's just five days before Christmas. They talk idly of how there's no snow yet, but maybe soon.
"That's when she began to sing. Soft and reedy, her weak voice carrying a certain warble, as if coming from a tiny bird or a little girl. 'I'm dreaming of a White Christmas ...' I marveled at my mother's mind. From what part of her far-away mind had the song surfaced? I had not heard her sing 'White Christmas' in decades ... Neither of us knew more than the very first verse, so we sand it over again. Over and over. When she had sung all she wanted, she stopped and sighed. 'That Bing Crosby, heavens how he could sing,' she said, and then she was asleep in her chair, the silence again enveloping us."
The third, and most unforgetttable scene for me was John Grogan's last one-sided conversation with his dying, nearly comatose father. This from a man who thought he had lost his faith, to a man for whom faith had been central to his life for nearly ninety years: "Dad ... Jesus is going to take you home today. In just a little while, he's going to take you."
Reading this, my eyes filled with tears, I continued to read John Grogan's last words to his dad, telling how much he loved him. And I remembered, weeping, my last meeting with my own father, who was also dying of cancer. My family, ...
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Rated by buyers
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This book is the best book I've ever read. I laughed so hard my kids came running to see if I had 'lost it' then I cried so hard at the end I actually couldn't hold the book. John writes as if you are right there with him experiencing the same things he is....most of which I have growing up in suburban Detroit myself. Read this one very first and then read Marly & Me and while I have to say I loved the story of Marley too, this one is my personal favorite.
Rated by buyers
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it was outstanding. It went from laugh out loud funny, to sobbing uncontrollably. I grew up about the same time John did, was raised Catholic Irish, and abandoned the church at about the same age John did. John poked a little fun at his Catholic upbringing, but never crossed that line to irreverence or disrrespect. There are parts of this book that difinitely hit home (counting the Virgin Mary statues in the house)and the non Catholic may not find quite as entertaining, because they will probably think they are fabricated- they aren't!!! I love the part where John and Jenny stay in their parent's bedroom as newlyweds- with the crucifix, the Virgin Mary's and the rosary all staring at them.
I was a hippy, always in trouble, and was the very first rebel in my family to quit Catholic school after sixth grade and attend public school. But will wonders never cease- after 30+ years of not stepping inside a church except for an occasional wedding or funeral I started attending Catholic Masses on a regular basis about 3 years ago. I thank God that I had a good foundation, and when I was ready to go back to church I knew where to go. I look back and am so appreciative that my family gave me the start that they did. This is a heartwarming book that I will definitely recommend- especially to my Catholic family and friends
Rated by buyers
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I was so disappointed in this book!!! The language was very filthy!! This book is the sexual coming of age of a teenage boy. Very graphic and dirty.
I usually give the books I've read to the GoodWill but this book went right into the garbage after a couple of chapters. Mr. Grogan, it is not necessary to use such profanity. I am so sorry that I spent money on this book. It is a waste.
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