SOURCE: "No Other Way: Sinclair Ross's Stories and Novels," in Canadian Literature, Vol. 47, 1971, pp. 49-66.

In the following essay, Djwa determines the quintessential Canadian nature of Ross's short fiction.

As a Newfoundlander, I have always felt a great fondness for the writings of Sinclair Ross. I do not quite understand the nature of the attraction, whether it is his concept of a prairie nature—hard, with overtones of fatalism—which corresponds to my own view of Newfoundland, or whether it is simply his wry observations of the circumlocutions of the Puritan way—a sensibility which also strikes a familiar note. In any event, whenever the term "Canadian novel" comes to mind, I find myself gravitating towards Ross and particularly towards his sometimes puzzling first novel, As For Me and My House.

Reading through Queen's Quarterly of the late 30's and early 40's, it is not too difficult to...