• Author: Josh Grogan
  
• ISBN-13: 9780061713248
• Format: Hardcover, 352pp
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Pub. Date: October 2008

Grogan follows up Marley & Me with a hilarious and touching memoir of his childhood in suburban Detroit. "To say my parents were devout Catholics is like saying the sun runs a little hot," he writes. "It defined who they were." Grogan and his three siblings grew up in a house full of saints' effigies, attended a school run by ruler-wielding nuns and even spent family vacations at religious shrines, chapels and monasteries. Grogan defied his upbringing through each coming-of-age milestone: his first impure thoughts, which he couldn't bare to divulge at his First Confession (the priest was a family friend); his first buzz from the communion wine he chugged with his fellow altar boys; and his coming to know women in the biblical sense. As Grogan matured, his unease with Church doctrine grew, and he realized he'd never share his parents' religious zeal. Telling them he's joined the ranks of the nonpracticing Catholics, however, is much easier said than done, even in adulthood. At 30, he fell in love with a Protestant, moved in with her and then married her-a sequence of events that crushed his parents. In this tenderly told story, Grogan considers the rift between the family he's made and the family that made him-and how to bridge the two.

(Source: Publishers Weekly)

Author of the bestselling Marley & Me (2005) shares his candy-coated personal history. Grogan opens with memories of his "wondrous" youth, guided by a mother who awakened each of her four children with the tickle of a feather and some lighthearted teasing. The author recalls having inexhaustible energy while growing up in metropolitan Detroit, somewhat to the chagrin of strict but loving Mom, who made valiant attempts to rein in her preteen powerhouse. On a typical vacation, known as a "family miracle trip," they would camp out after spending the day visiting religious shrines and monasteries. The Grogan family was fervently religious, which may explain why the author became so mischievous at an early age. He spied on a topless neighbor sunbathing in her yard, cultivated crushes on teachers in his particularly sadistic parochial school and indulged in cigarettes, fireworks and mild neighborhood vandalism. Humorous situations saturate the narrative: his brother Michael's early affinity for the priestly life juxtaposed against Grogan's own predilection for the female bosom; his parents' radical frugality; various altar boy calamities; a lip-mauling kiss from "Lioness Lori . . . an overzealous make-out partner with braces." Experimentation with drugs, sex and petty crime soon followed, along with the dogged pursuit of writing, launched with a vulgar underground publication that landed him and his high-school cohorts in hot water. Post-college, Grogan got writing gigs at various newspapers in random locales. He also acquired a non-Catholic girlfriend: his future wife Jenny, with whom he cohabitated before getting married, which both bewildered and disappointed his conservative, judgmentalparents. Although much of the book describes Grogan locking horns with his parents over varied, mostly religious differences, after his father's leukemia diagnosis it becomes a mushy testament to the power of love, forgiveness and growing old gracefully. A harmless, wholesome treat for those who don't mind a little treacle.

(Source: Kirkus Reviews)

Über-best selling author Grogan (Marley & Me) recounts growing up devoutly Catholic in a "Shangri-La by the shore" outside Detroit, beginning with an idyllic childhood in an unsanctimonious, loving household full of friends, swimming, and stealth cigarettes. During a comparatively tame (for the late Sixties) adolescence, replete with making out, beer, and shooting off fireworks, Grogan realizes, "There could be either one God who loved everybody the same, or no God at all." So begins a religious estrangement that is paired with major guilt over disappointing his parents (he often lies to them to spare them heartache). The book's latter part is a love-soaked paean to his terminally ill father. While Grogan's workmanlike writing, certain and readable, gives off a calculated sincerity, he is genuinely devoted to his parents. Grogan's memoir of his journey for identity is akin to Barack Obama's Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance. Required for even the smallest libraries owing to Grogan's name recognition, the upcoming movie release of Marley, its tie-in paperback, and the publisher's substantial PR push.

-- Douglas Lord

(Source: Library Journal)

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