Going Out Backwards: A Grafton Everest Adventure

Grafton Everest #5

by Ross Fitzgerald

Bumbling Mangoland academic, Professor Dr Grafton Everest, has been elected to the Australian Senate, without really knowing why, and due to the influx of weird Independents, finds himself holding the balance of power. Despite this, his personal life is a train wreck. A prostatectomy has left him impotent, his daughter is staging a theatrical event with an outlaw motorcycle gang and he suspects his wife is planning to have him put to sleep. On top of it all, Australia is facing natural disaster from Tectonic Change. Can Grafton save his family, his country and himself

'Grafton Everest is a wonderful creation whom I would place without question in the ranks of Philip Roth's Portnoy and Kingsley Amis's Lucky Jim.' - Barry Humphries

'Grafton Everest [is] a slob making Les Patterson seem a class act. Broad comedy, very rude and, for anyone liking gleefully scabrous humour, very funny as well.' - The Daily Mail (London)

189 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 1, 2015

About the author

Ross Fitzgerald AM, political commentator, biographer, novelist, historian and broadcaster, is Emeritus Professor of History and Politics at Griffith University. Professor Fitzgerald is the author of 39 books, including four previous Grafton Everest fictions. His memoir My Name is Ross: An Alcoholic’s Journey, published by New South Books Sydney, is available as an e-book and a Talking Book from Vision Australia.

Reviews

[Ruth Bonetti · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a hilarious satire on the Australian scene, though if read soon after release in 2015 it would have been even more so. It's apparent Fitzgerald and McFadyen had fun writing this romp, with thinly disguised caricatures of politicians (PM Judy Gillies, former PM Bevan Fudd), luminaries ('featured environmentalist Tom Flummery) and media (Rarefax Radio; ABC&A morphed into QED; a feature by Yolanda Yabbie, host of Bathroom Cabinet.).
Our hero, an accidental Senator, courtesy of the Preference Whisperer, is the Honourable Grafton Everest, Life Emeritus Professor of the University of Mangoland. Prostate cancer surgery renders him impotent, until...