Friends,

Pandemonium. is featured in ‘Fulbright in Focus’ November 2023.https://www.fulbright.org.au/news-and-events/The above links to my article on the Fulbright website, containing the full text, two reviews, and links to the publisher:

PandemoniumNew Book from Professor Ross Fitzgerald AM

“I am a very grateful recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship to Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio in the mid 1960s. Indeed it was being in America on a Fulbright that enabled me to eventually become a Professor in History & Politics and, more importantly to start a career as a writer of fiction and …

After I drove a car off the Menangle Bridge, near Camden in 1963, I was flown by air ambulance to the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. When I arrived, Dr Miles Little was on duty as the surgical registrar. He and his team operated on me for almost eight hours and, as a result, saved my life.Even though I was then barely 19, he also was the first person to tell me that I was an alcoholic.This is because, after I was switched from a lengthy stay in ICU, I pulled …

Humphries family to boycott memorial                     by Briana DomjenFriends and family of late comedian Barry Humphries are “aghast” Richard Wilkins has been enlisted to MC his memorial — and some won’t be attending in protest.Barry Humphries’ “many lives” will be celebrated in a special state memorial at the Sydney Opera House next month, but an apparent difference of opinion between his widow, Lizzie Spender, and others, including Humphries’ daughter Emily, means many friends and family will not attend the event, which is …

Here is my speech at launch of the ninth Grafton Everest political satire, Pandemonium. The Olsen Gallery, Sydney, 6.30 pm, 14 November, 2023ROSS FITZGERALD   Many critics have claimed to know how Grafton Everest – the bumbling, overweight, teetotal Professor in Life Skills from the University of Mangoland, who’s the central character in all my political satires – got his name.Two claimants stand out.The first – A professor of linguistics who stated that, after analysing my first four fictions, it was obvious that Grafton Everest was a code for ‘Graft and …

                             AUSTRALIAN BOOKS
                            Rip-roaring Satire in Iota
Pandemonium by Ross Fitzgerald and Ian McFadyen
Hybrid  $32.99, 297 pages 
Reviewed by Rocco Loiacono
   This novel is the ninth book of the satirical series concerning Grafton Everest, a rambunctious, overweight, fictional academic who, as the book’s opening paragraph states, has been appointed, ‘once again through no ability, effort or desire of his own, to the position of Secretary-General of the …

Today November 5, 2023 is Guy Fawkes Day.
On November 5, 1974, when I was four years sober, I met my darling wife and friend of 45 years, Lyndal Moor.
 
This occurred at  a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous at St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney.
My longtime  friend Barry Humphries had asked would I go there because Lyndal, who was living with his manager Clyde Packer, planned to attend her first AA meeting.
My first words to Lyndal after the meeting were, “If you only knew what could happen to you if you stay close …