Behind the Second Story

Sinclair Ross’s As for Me and My House is a classic. Published in 1941 by the American firm Reynal and Hitchcock, the story follows Philip Bentley, a preacher and a newcomer to the small town of Horizon, and his wife, Mrs. Bentley, who narrates it in the form of a diary. Gloomy and Canadian — insofar as you don’t get a happy ending, just recognition of the familiar — the novel is an example of the “­prairie gothic,” where characters who have notions of escaping their situations are trapped, physically and spiritually. Philip is unhappy, very unhappy, but he doesn’t have or won’t provide the words to explain why. Mrs. Bentley spends the ­narrative, and presumably her whole married life, trying to understand his pain.

As for Me and My House has served as inspiration for other works of quiet desperation. Lorna Crozier’s 1996 poetry collection, A Saving Grace, channelled the voice of Mrs. Bentley to paint a terse picture of prairie life. Few words...