James FitzGerald is a Toronto-born journalist and author. His first book, Old Boys: The Powerful Legacy of Upper Canada College, is a controversial inside look at the attitudes and values of English Canada’s ruling class families. Revelations of the sexual abuse of boys at the school, first published in the book in 1994, sparked the criminal conviction of three former teachers and a successful multi-million dollar class action suit against UCC.
His second book, What Disturbs Our Blood: A Son’s Quest to Redeem the Past, is a multi-layered exploration of madness and high achievement within his prominent Toronto medical family. In 2010, the book won the Writers’ Trust Non-Fiction Prize and was short-listed for three other major literary awards. The Globe and Mail wrote: “A memoir of extraordinary power and candour … as riveting as a crime thriller.”
In 2013, James spent three months as writer-in-residence at the Pierre Berton House in Dawson City, Yukon. He is currently working on Dreaming Sally, a true story of first love, sudden death and synchronicity set in the summer of 1968. Due to be published by Random House in the spring of 2017, the book is the last in a thematic trilogy of creative non-fiction.
