Greg O’Brien has more than 35 years of newspaper and magazine experience as a writer, editor, investigative reporter, and publisher. He has contributed over the years, among other publications, to the Associated Press, UPI, USA Today, The Arizona Republic, Boston Herald American, Boston Metro, New York Metro, Philadelphia Metro, The Providence Journal, Cape Cod Times, Boston Irish Reporter, and Boston Magazine where he was senior writer. The author/editor of several books, O’Brien has published 17 books by other writers, and was a founding managing director of Community Newspaper Company, established in Boston. He lives in West Brewster on Cape Cod with his wife, Mary Catherine. The couple has three children: Brendan, Colleen and Conor.
O’Brien was diagnosed several years ago with Early Onset Alzheimer’s after a horrific head injury “unmasked” a disease in the making, as doctors note. His maternal grandfather and his mother died of the disease. O’Brien also carries a marker gene for Alzheimer’s.
Working off a cognitive reserve and journalistic grit, O’Brien, writing On Pluto: Inside the Mind of Alzheimer’s, offers a first person perspective on how to fight this demon of a disease. On Pluto is not a misery memoir, it is a book about hope and faith, about the critical need for a cure and for better care for Baby Boomers, your children and your grandchildren who face a tidal wave of this disease in years to come.
O’Brien and his family also were subjects of a short film about Alzheimer’s, produced by legendary film maker Steve James, A Place Called Pluto. The film, accessed online at livingwithalz.org, was screened at film festivals across the country, including the distinguished Tribeca Film Festival in New York.
O’Brien Family Mosaic | Far right, maternal grandfather George W. Brown, who died of Alzheimer’s; Below Left Snapshot, parents Virginia and Frank O’Brien; Below Right Snapshot, Virginia O’Brien, who died from Alzheimer’s, holding her son Greg, Rye Beach, Westchester County, NY, 1953; Center, the O’Brien siblings on the back deck at Cape Cod cottage, from left to right. — back row: Greg O’Brien, Maureen Maresca, Tim O’Brien, Lauren Anderson; bottom row: Andy O’Brien, Bernadette Thompson, Justine O’Brien, and Paul O’Brien.