Gromit, the long-suffering, perpetually expressive, canonically mute dog from Wallace & Gromit, is writing a memoir. He has, according to publisher Ebury, been "bottling everything up for a long time." Honestly? Same.
The Dog Who Never Spoke Has Plenty to Say
The book is called Grand: The Autobiography of Gromit, and it is scheduled for an October release. According to Ebury, it will cover his "never-before-told" life story, including what it's like to wear the Techno Trousers, his real feelings about gnomes, and, yes, what the moon actually tastes like.
For the uninitiated: Gromit has no dialogue in any of the Aardman films or shorts. Not a word. He communicates entirely through facial expressions and body language, which, if you have ever watched The Wrong Trousers, you know is more emotionally devastating than most human performances in cinema. He conveys existential despair, dry disbelief, and genuine love for a bumbling cheese-obsessed inventor using nothing but his eyebrows. He deserves a memoir. He deserves a therapist, frankly.
Nick Park Is, Predictably, Very Pleased With His Dog
Creator Nick Park, who built Gromit out of clay and accidentally gave him more emotional range than most Hollywood actors, was enthusiastic about the announcement. "He tells of their life and loves, their affections and afflictions, their pet hates and fur-vent passions," Park said in a statement reported by Only Good News Daily. He also promised the book would be "a deep dish of doggy nuggets and wisdom to chew on."
Look, Nick Park has earned the right to lean all the way into the puns. The man has four Academy Awards. Let him cook.
The publisher's official author bio describes Gromit as "a talented knitter, baker, and gardener" who has "twice received awards for his marrows in competition." It also notes, pointedly, that "he is well-read" but that this is his first book. The bio closes with: "He would like you to know that he is a good dog." That is either the sweetest thing or the most emotionally manipulative marketing copy ever written. Probably both.
A Franchise That Has Not Lost a Step
The timing is not accidental. Aardman's most recent film, Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl, dropped on Christmas Day 2024 in the UK and pulled 9.3 million live viewers, according to Only Good News Daily. Once on-demand and catch-up viewing came in, that number climbed past 16 million. For a stop-motion clay animation about a cheese enthusiast and his dog, that is a staggering number.
The film also holds a perfect 100 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Feature. It brought back Feathers McGraw, the silent penguin villain from The Wrong Trousers, which is a sentence that should make every millennial feel something complicated in their chest.
Wallace & Gromit has been running since 1989, when A Grand Day Out first introduced the pair to an unsuspecting world. Thirty-seven years later, the franchise is still pulling in massive audiences and critical praise, which is more than you can say for basically any other cultural institution that started in 1989.
What We Actually Want to Know
Here is the real question: what does the moon taste like? The original short film A Grand Day Out established that Wallace built a rocket to visit the moon specifically because he ran out of cheese, and that the moon is, in fact, made of a kind of cheese. This has been canonical in the Wallace & Gromit universe for nearly four decades. Gromit was there. Gromit knows.
We are also deeply invested in the gnome feelings. Gromit's complicated relationship with garden gnomes has been a background element of the franchise for years. It is time for answers. It is time for accountability. October cannot come soon enough.
The Dingo Take
In a news cycle that has spent the last several years being aggressively, relentlessly bleak, a clay dog publishing a tell-all memoir is the kind of story that reminds you the world still occasionally produces things worth paying attention to for reasons other than rage. Gromit has been silently absorbing Wallace's chaos since 1989. He watched his owner get his leg stuck in a pair of robotic trousers controlled by a criminal penguin. He has cleaned up after every failed invention, every cheese-related disaster, every scheme gone sideways. He did it all without a single word. He earned this book.
There is also something quietly pointed about the fact that the most emotionally intelligent, perceptive, and competent character in the entire franchise is the one who never speaks. He figures things out. He pays attention. He reads actual books. He grows prize-winning marrows. Meanwhile Wallace cheerfully walks into catastrophe every single time. If that is not a metaphor for something, we don't know what is.
Grand: The Autobiography of Gromit comes out in October. Pre-order it. Read it to your kids. Read it to yourself. In a world that is genuinely trying its hardest, a good dog with things to say is exactly what we need.
