Spring/Summer 2005 - University of Toronto Press Publishing

GENERAL INTERESTAs for Sinclair RossDavid StouckStouck’s biography draws on archival recordsand on insights gathered during an acquaintancelate in Ross’s life to illuminate this difficult author,describing in detail the struggles of a gifted artistliving in an inhospitable time and place. Stouckargues that when Ross was writing about prairiefarmers and small towns, he wanted his readers tosee the kind of society they were creating, to feeluncomfortable with religion as coercive rhetoric,prejudices based on race and ethnicity, and rigidnotions of gender. As for Sinclair Ross is the story ofa remarkable writer whose works continue to challengeus and are rightly considered classics ofCanadian literature.David Stouck is a professor in the Department ofEnglish at Simon Fraser University.Sinclair Ross (1908–1996), best known for hiscanonical novel As for Me and My House (1941),and for such familiar short stories as “The Lamp atNoon” and “The Painted Door,” is an elusive figurein Canadian literature. A master at portraying thehardships and harsh beauty of the Prairies duringthe Great Depression, Ross nevertheless receivedonly modest attention from the public during hislifetime. His reluctance to give readings or interviewsfurther contributed to this faint public perceptionof the man.In As for Sinclair Ross, David Stouck tells thestory of a lonely childhood in rural Saskatchewan,of a long and unrewarding career in a bank, and ofmany failed attempts to be published and to find anaudience. The book also tells the story of a manwho fell in love with both men and women andwho wrote from a position outside any single definitionof gender and sexuality.‘As for Sinclair Ross is one of the most companionablebiographies I have ever read: a loving friend talks articulatelyand meaningfully about the long life of one ofCanada’s most important writers. The painstaking research,not just in archives, but most especially in interviews, is outstanding,but the strength of the book is in its warmth, itsattention to detail, and the ways Stouck reads the biographyinto the literature. This is a wonderful, must-have work.’Frances Kaye, Department of English, University ofNebraska, LincolnAlso by David Stouck:Ethel WilsonA Critical Biography0-8020-8741-8 / £32.00 / $50.00 / 2003LITERARY STUDIESApprox. 350 pp / 6 x 9 / April 200525 halftonesCloth ISBN 0-8020-4388-7 £28.00 $45.00 ESinclair Ross, 1941. Courtesy Royal Bank Corporate Archives.6