Sinclair Ross | Author

Sinclair Ross, who received the Order of Canada in 1992, is still revered for his 1941 love story about a preacher and his wife during the dustbowl days of the Depression, As For Me And My House, one of the most-taught novels in Canadian history. His other works include two short story collections and three novels, The Well, Whir of Gold and Sawbones Memorial.

Born in a homestead near Prince Albert, Saskatchewan in 1908, Ross worked on prairie farms before turning to a banking career that lasted until his retirement in 1968 (interrupted only by four years in the Canadian army, 1942-46). Hampered by Parkinson’s disease and a sense of personal failure, he resided in Vancouver, in relative obscurity, from 1982 onwards, until his death 14 years later at age 88.

The 50th anniversary of the publication of As For Me And My House was marked by a symposium in Ottawa. Author Keath Fraser, who knew Ross for 26 years, provided an intimate and highly perceptive portrait of Ross–describing an attempted suicide and relaying some of Ross’ versions of his homosexual encounters–in his revelatory As for Me and My Body: A Memoir of Sinclair Ross (1997). SFU English professor David Stouck elaborates on Fraser’s work, and also clarifies and modifies some of Ross’ own misleading and boastful statements about his sex life, in a critical biography, As for Sinclair Ross (2005).