A Dog’s Life

Former newspaper man John Grogan found himself a literary sensation after writing a book about his (and man’s) best friend, writes Nadine O’Regan

John Grogan: ‘Marley was the catalyst that tested my marriage’ PIc: Fergal Phillips

Even when John Grogan is complaining about his old dog Marley, a hyperactive pooch who ate pay cheques, chewed walls and once even made off with Grogan’s wife’s pregnancy testing kit, he always comes back to the same sweetly nostalgic conclusion. “Marley paid us back in the end,” he says.

He’s not wrong. In a private room in Trinity’s Long Room Hub, Grogan may look like the very definition of an affable, mild-mannered ...