The Lamp at Noon and Other Stories

Born and reared on the prairies of Saskatchewan, Sinclair Ross has spent his life working in Canadian banks. It may have been these experiences that led him to write about the isolation of farm families and the hardships of farmers during the Depression---both of which lend his work an air of desolation. Introducing Sinclair's collection of short show more fiction The Lamp at Noon (1968), Margaret Laurence notes that, in the stories, "the farms stand far apart. . . . The human community is, for most of the time, reduced to its smallest unit, one family. The isolation is virtually complete." No matter how bleak the circumstances, however, the characters survive, even if they are often trapped between the poles of despair and hope. Ross has also published four novels, but his reputation rests on his first one, As for Me and My House (1941). Although it did not receive much attention when it appeared, it is now firmly established as a Canadian classic. Spare yet richly textured, the narrative recounts the relationship between a disillusioned minister and his wife, whose diary serves as the vehicle for the tale. A Whir of Gold (1970), concerned with city life in Canada, and Sawbones Memorial (1974), about Canadian small-town life, lack the power of the first book. Ross is considered one of the first Canadian writers to employ modernist techniques, such as a restricted third-person point of view, the unreliable narrator, and multiple points of view. A monument in his honour has been erected in Indian Head by Saskatchewan artists and readers with a bronze statue sculpted by Joe Fafard. In 1992, he was made a Member of the Order of Canada. He died in 1996 after battling Parkinson's Disease, and was buried in Indian Head. (Bowker Author Biography) show less