My Last Drink, 32 Stories of Recovering Alcoholics
Edited by Ross Fitzgerald and Neal Price
Connor Court, 2022, 189 pages, $29.95
Reviewed by Matthew White
One does tire of celebrity reprobates. A fast way to attract attention and build a ‘profile’ in our lazy society is to write about one’s appalling behaviour towards others. Its acceptability enables a form of confession and avoidance, and, if properly promoted and garnished with a veneer of bohemianism, it is more like confession and appointment to the firmament of New Ideaidolatry. Attention, advertisement, writers’ festivals, prizes, perhaps even honours, …

AUSTRALIAN BOOKS

MY LAST DRINK
Reviewed by Rocco Loiacono
Ross Fitzgerald and Neal Price (eds)
My Last Drink: 32 stories of recovering alcoholics
Connor Court, 2022, 190 pages, $29.95
In a recent interview with Piers Morgan, Dr Jordan Peterson remarked: “It’s really something to see, constantly, how many people are dying for lack of an encouraging word. And how easy it is to provide that if you’re careful.” My Last Drink –an anthology of highly personal and inspiring stories, edited by Ross Fitzgerald and Neal Price – demonstrates how important an encouraging word can be in …

Historian, avid novelist and political commentator Ross Fitzgerald AM has his fingers and toes crossed that life will soon imitate art in the Russia-Ukraine war.
The emeritus professor at Brisbane’s Griffith University has co-written a series of political satires with Ian McFadyen, of TV’s Comedy Company fame.
The Lowest Depths, released late last year, is the eighth in the series, which centres around anti-hero Grafton Everest.
The plot involves – spoiler alert –dictatorial President Vladimir Putrid being assassinated.
As Fitzgerald told Strewth: “My favourite teacher at Melbourne High School Norton Hobson (who is the basis for Mr Horton – the …

CBD loves a multi-hyphenate. And none more so than Ross Andrew Fitzgerald AM, the academic, historian, novelist, secularist and political commentator.
Fitzgerald, an emeritus professor in history and politics at Griffith University, even though he lives in Redfern, Sydney, is the author and co-author of 43 books. His latest is one of a series of political/sexual satires about his corpulent anti-hero Grafton Everest, co-written with Ian McFadyen, of TV series Comedy Company fame.
The latest novel The Lowest Depths, released late last year, is set in Australia and Russia. During the course …

 Ross Fitzgerald & Ian McFadyen, The Lowest Depths, Hybrid Publishers: Melbourne, $24.95.
Reviewed by Dr Alan Gregory
Graham Green’s term “An Entertainment”, probably best sums up this beautifully produced book.

The Lowest Depths is a very good read, with equal elements of a socio-politico farce and of a spy thriller, plus a touch of sci-fi!

As with its predecessor, The Dizzying Heights, this book featuring Dr Professor Grafton Everest is written by two Melbourne High School Old Boys – Ross Fitzgerald and Ian McFadyen.

Ross Fitzgerald AM is Emeritus Professor of History & Politics at Griffith University. …

Cardinal George Pell: a man of sorrows

Sensationally, in April 2020, all seven judges of the High Court of Australia quashed Pell’s conviction.
Cardinal Pell, The Media Pile-On & Collective Guilt
By Gerard Henderson,
Connor Court Publishing
457pp, $39.95
Reviewed by ROSS FITZGERALD

The case of George Pell revealed deep fault lines in Australian society. Some people were convinced of his innocence, but many others wanted him to be guilty.

The trial, retrial, and conviction in December 2018 of Cardinal Pell for historical child sexual abuse of two choirboys at Melbourne’s St Patrick’s Cathedral that allegedly occurred in …

by Phil Brown, Arts Editor, The Courier-Mail

Ross Fitzgerald & Ian McFadyen, The Lowest Depths : The Eighth Book in The Grafton Everest Series
 Hybrid Publishers: Melbourne, pp 271, $24.99

When historian and novelist Ross Fitzgerald enlisted the help of comedian Ian McFadyen as his co-writer an unholy alliance was born. It has blossomed and produced rare fruit … three books in fact. There was Going Out Backwards: A Grafton Everest Adventure, published in 2015, The Dizzying Heights, published in 2019, and now the latest Grafton Everest adventure (or should that be misadventure?), The Lowest Depths is just out. …

By Nell O’Shea Carre

Columnist, Book Reviewer and Emeritus Professor of History & Politics at Griffith University, Ross Fitzgerald AM, is set to launch his 43rd book, The Lowest Depths, tomorrow.
Ross appears regularly on TV and radio, including the ABC, Channel 7 and Sky News, to discuss his work and contemporary Australian state and federal politics.
So how does he find the time to be so prolific?
“I’m a sober alcoholic and an insomniac, so I’ve got plenty of time to read and to write,” he says. 

“I stopped drinking and using on Australia Day 1970. And …

The Lowest Depths by Ross Fitzgerald & Ian McFadyen
Hybrid Publishers, Melbourne 2021
Print ISBN: 9781925736748, 1925736741
ISBN: 9781925736755, 192573675X
RRP: $24.99 (pb)
Reviewed by Alan Gregory
   Graham Green’s term “An Entertainment”, probably best sums up this beautifully produced book.
The Lowest Depths is a very good read, with equal elements of a socio-politico farce and of a spy thriller, plus a touch of sci-fi!
As with its predecessor, The Dizzying Heights, this book featuring Dr Professor Grafton Everest is written by two Melbourne High School old boys – Ross Fitzgerald and Ian McFadyen.  Ross Fitzgerald AM is Emeritus Professor of …

by Neal Price
Ross Fitzgerald & Ian McFadyen
The Lowest Depths : The eighth book in the Grafton Everest series.
Hybrid Publishers: Melbourne, 2021, $24.99 
Co-written with Ian McFadyen, of Comedy Company fame, The Lowest Depths is Professor Ross Fitzgerald’s 43rd book and the eighth in his Grafton Everest series.
Fitzgerald’s latest offering cleverly bookends the seventh Grafton Everest fiction, The Dizzying Heights – published in 2019 by Hybrid Publishers in Melbourne, which is also co-written with McFadyen.
It is unprecedented in Australia, and perhaps in the English-speaking world, for eight political/sexual satires to be written chronologically, following the development …

An exciting update, courtesy of our dear friend, 1968 Fulbright alum Professor Ross Fitzgerald AM (Griffith University):
“I thought that you and the group might be interested to know that my forty-third book, and eighth Grafton Everest adventure, THE LOWEST DEPTHS, will soon be released by my nimble Melbourne-based publisher, Hybrid. This follows my forty-second book, a memoir, FIFTY YEARS SOBER: AN ALCOHOLIC’S JOURNEY, also published by Hybrid.
THE LOWEST DEPTHS is co-written with my long-time friend Ian McFadyen, of Comedy Company fame.
In it, the hapless ex-President of the Republic of Australia, whose beloved wife Janet is …