Ross Fitzgerald
Ross Andrew Fitzgerald AM (born in 1944) is an Australian academic, historian, novelist, secularist, and political commentator. Fitzgerald is an Emeritus Professor in History and Politics at Griffith University. He has authored or co-authored forty-five books, including three histories of Queensland, two biographies, works about Labor Party politics of the 1950s, with other books relating to philosophy, alcohol and Australian Rules football, as well as ten works of fiction, including nine political/sexual satires about his corpulent anti-hero Professor Dr Grafton Everest.
Ross Fitzgerald | |
|---|---|
| Born | 25 December 1944 |
| Nationality | Australian |
| Alma mater | University of New South Wales |
| Occupation(s) | Academic, historian, novelist, secularist, and political commentator |
| Known for | Labor historian and author |
| Political party | The Reason Party |
| Spouse | Lyndal Moor (1944–2020) |
| Children | Emerald |
In 2018 Ross Fitzgerald published the Grafton Everest sexual/political satire So Far, So Good : An entertainment. In 2019, he published the Grafton Everest adventure The Dizzying Heights and in March 2020, his memoir Fifty Years Sober. In November 2021 he published the eighth Grafton Everest adventure, The Lowest Depths. All these books are published by Hybrid in Melbourne.
Fitzgerald was an alcoholic who admitted in his memoirs, My Name is Ross: An Alcoholic's Journey and Fifty Years Sober, to consuming excessive alcohol between the ages of 15 and 24 years, when he took his last drink. He has now been sober for 54 years.
At the 2016 federal election Fitzgerald was a candidate for the Australian Senate representing the state of New South Wales, standing for the Australian Sex Party, which is now renamed The Reason Party.