The Longest Trip Home

John Grogan (MARLEY AND ME) spent his life distancing himself from a devout Catholic upbringing, only to return as his father battled leukemia. Grogan reads his own book with a voice that conveys both the defiance and cynicism of his youth and the concern of his older self for his ailing father. He also reflects on both times in his life from the wiser perspective of adulthood. This isn't a sentimental memoir. Grogan has rollicking tales of his youthful marijuana use and "making out," and discusses how he fell away from religion. Grogan often shows admiration for his parents, relating how they took in kids fleeing the Detroit riots. This one's for those disaffected kids, now adults, not their parents. J.A.S. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine

Starred review from September 1, 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.