Chalk and Cheese: A Fabrication, by Ross Fitzgerald & Ian McFadyen (Hybrid, August 2025, pp 224, $24.99)

Eamonn O’Hanlon After suffering a stroke, veteran conservative commercial radio broadcaster Bill Bradley is admitted to an aged care facility, only to find that one of the residents is none other than his arch political and media rival. This is the left-wing radical socialist broadcaster Ben Curran, whose grandfather was a leading light of the Communist Party of Australia. 

When other residents start asking for their help about unfair government regulations and elder abuse, these two …

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Chalk and Cheese: A FabricationRoss Fitzgerald and Ian McFadyenHybrid, $24.99

Comic writing partners Ross Fitzgerald and Ian McFadyen will be familiar to some from their Grafton Everest books – a lively and long-running Australian series of political satires featuring a Rabelaisian academic (with a touch of Sir Les Patterson) getting himself into absurd scrapes.

In Chalk and Cheese, they break fresh comedic ground. Two journalists with opposing political views are admitted to the same aged care home. Conservative broadcaster …

Can political adversaries ever find common ground to fight for a cause? They can and they do in Ross Fitzgerald and Ian McFadyen’s latest satirical novel.

Ian McFadyen and Ross Fitzgerald teamed up to write the novel Chalk and Cheese.IDoes it take an odd couple to write about an odd couple? If that gives you Felix Ungar and Oscar Madison flashbacks (the diametrically opposed characters of film and TV fame), you get the general idea.

But the odd couple in Ross Fitzgerald and Ian McFadyen’s latest collaboration, Chalk and Cheese, is Ben …

Brisbane launch of Ross Fitzgerald & Ian McFadyen’s  CHALK & CHEESE: A Fabrication .

AVID READER BOOKSHOP West End. Brisbane  Sunday 2 November 2pm for 2.30pm

Chalk and Cheese: A Fabrication – Ross Fitzgerald & Ian McFadyenSUNDAY 2 NOVEMBER | INSTORE EVENTAVID READER BOOKSHOP193 Boundary Street, West End QLD 4101 (07) 3846 3422 2pm for a 2.30pm start | 60 mins

Join us for the launch of Chalk and Cheese: A Fabrication by Ross Fitzgerald and Ian McFadyen.ABOUT THE BOOKRoss Fitzgerald and Ian McFadyen’s powerful new fiction, Chalk and Cheese, is a tale of two 80-year-old …

Chalk and Cheese: A Fabrication, by Ross Fitzgerald & Ian McFadyen (Hybrid, $24.99).Reviewed by MICHAEL BRIODY.

Ross Fitzgerald and Ian McFadyen’s powerful new novel, Chalk and Cheese: A Fabrication features two octogenarian former rival radio stars, Bill and Ben, who detest each other – until they find themselves in the same nursing home.

The plot centres around these two men in the twilight of their lives who refuse, as Dylan Thomas wrote, to “go gentle into that good night”.The novel sets the scene for the flood of baby boomers who will boost …

Chalk and Cheese: A Fabrication by Ross Fitzgerald and Ian McFadyen,

From Griffith University Media

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2 July 2025

Interview with prolific author and historian Ross Fitzgerald on hilarious new book Chalk and Cheese

Chalk and Cheese: A Fabrication by Ross Fitzgerald and Ian McFadyen, a compelling novel fromHybrid Publishers, features two feisty octogenarian ex-radio stars, Bill and Ben, as theynavigate rivalry and reconciliation in a nursing home.

With humor and heart, this tale explores aging, and unlikely alliances. Their tech-savvy grandchildren, Carl and Lily, help them launch …

Chalk and Cheese: A Fabrication, by Ross Fitzgerald and Ian McFadyen, Hybrid Publishers,$24.99,

Do you worry about how the elderly are treated in nursing homes?

Chalk and Cheese: A Fabrication, by Ross Fitzgerald and Ian McFadyenCategories: Fiction, Released Soon. Product ID: 8193

“Chalk and Cheese is a work of brilliantly cinematic quality.”–Nigel Marsh, Smart, Stupid & Sixty

Ross Fitzgerald and Ian McFadyen’s powerful new fiction, Chalk and Cheese, is a tale of two 80-year-old former radio stars, Bill and Ben, who hate each other, but who end up in the same nursing home.Even though …

Queensland’s autocratic ALP premier and Australia’s only Communist Party MP:The St Patrick’s Day bash.

Professor Ross Fitzgerald AM

History and politics buffs should either be made aware, or be given cause to remember, that in Brisbane, on St Patrick’s Day 1948, Australia’s only Communist Party MP, Fred Paterson, was almost murdered by a Queensland policeman, almost certainly at the instigation of someone higher up.

From 1944 to 1950, Frederick Woolnough (‘Fred’) Paterson was the CPA member for Bowen in the Queensland Legislative Assembly.Soon after his election, it was said of Paterson that only …

Forgive my imperfect memory, but did I mention that SBSTV’s Insight program on elder heath has been moved forward to next Tuesday 18th March at 8:30 pm.

It is also available any time after 9.30am that night on SBS On Demand.

I’m told that my Weekend Australian article on elder abuse and our forthcoming novel Chalk and Cheese both get a mention.

Please spread the word that the program will be show next Tuesday

RedfernRossProfessor Ross Fitzgerald AM

Ian McFadyen, of ‘Comedy Company’ fame and I have nearly finished Chalk & Cheese, a novel about two 80 year old, ex radio stars (Bill & Ben) who hated each other and who end up in the same nursing home.

It is due to be publishedby our nimble Melbourne-based publisher Hybrid in a few months.

Eve though it has comedic aspects, Chalk & Cheese is not a comedy, but it is very filmic & would suit a number of actors who are no longer spring chickens.

Sam Neil or Geoffrey Rush as Bill …

Some books to buy for Christmas 2024 and New Year 2025 – in print and online

Ross Fitzgerald’s latest books published by Hybrid in Melbourne and available online, are a memoir Fifty Years Sober: An Alcoholic’s Journey and the Grafton Everest adventures The Ascent of Everest, in which American president Donald Thump and Russia’s Vladimir Putrid are both assassinated

The Ascent of Everest is a boxed set of four coauthored Australian political satires comprising Going Out Backwards, The Dizzying Heights The Lowest Depths and Pandemonium.

All these adventures of the corpulent, teetotal Dr …