NOMINEE 2011 – Toronto Book Awards

A rich, unmined piece of Canadian history, an intense psychological drama, a mystery to be solved… and a hardwon escape from a family curse

Like his friends Banting and Best, Dr. John Fitzgerald was a Canadian hero. He founded Connaught Labs, saved untold lives with his vaccines and transformed the idea of public health in Canada and the world. What so darkened his reputation that his memory has been all but erased?

A sensitive, withdrawn boy is born into the gothic house of his long dead grandfather, a brilliant yet tormented pathologist of Irish blood and epic accomplishment whose memory has been mysteriously erased from public consciousness. As the boy watches his own father - also an eminent doctor - plunge into a suicidal psychosis, he intuits, as the psychiatrists do not, some unspeakable secret buried like a tumour deep in the multi-generational layers of the family unconscious. Growing into manhood, he knows in his bones that he must stalk an ancient curse before it stalks him. To set himself free, he must break the silence and put words to the page. His future lies in the past.

About the Author
JAMES FITZGERALD is a journalist and author whose first book, Old Boys: The Powerful Legacy of Upper Canada College, was a controversial inside look at the attitudes and mores of Canada's ruling class. Revelations of the sexual abuse of boys at the school, first published in the book, led to the charging and conviction of two former teachers and the launching of a class action lawsuit against the college in 2002. The article that sparked What Disturbs Our Blood won a National Magazine Award.

Table of Contents
Prologue
 
Part I
1. The Ghosts of Balmoral
2. Room at the Top
3. Daddy Ded
4. Dr. FitzGerald Must Learn to Cover Up His Feelings
5. In Dreams
6. Let Sleeping Dogs Lie
7. I’m My Own Grandpa
8. The Unpardonable Sin
 
Part II
9. Science Has No Fatherland
10. Crucible of Ambition
11. A Kind of Superman
12. Gospel Certainty of Relapse
13. I Am a Mass of Flesh, and You Are Another
14. Salvation Lies in the Most Concrete Records
15. The Travel Bug
 
Part III
16. The Miracle in a Stable
17. Born with the Dead
18. The Sugar Sickness
19. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
20. Mens Sana In Corpore Sano
21. The High Priest of Quality Control
22. A Monument More Lasting Than Bronze
 
Part IV
23. Hell of a Good
24. The Living Lie
25. . . . and the Penalty Is Death
26. Damn Clever, These Spooks!
27. Occam’s Razor
28. The Archaeology of Silence
 
Acknowledgements
Select Bibliography And Sources
Permissions
Photo Credits
Index