Alexander M. Ross (1916- ), a native of Ontario grew up there on a farm and served in the Royal Canadian Artillery in World War II. Now Professor Emeritus at the University of Guelph, he has written "A Part of Me Is Missing" (2002 Borealis) and "Slow March to a Regiment" (2004). He has co-authored a revision of "The College on the Hill" (1999), a history of the Ontario Agricultural College.

   His father´s last words were scathing,"You dimwitted bastard." Four years later, scarred and missing a leg, James McKay returns from World War II to the needs of the family farm. Insistently he draws the reader into the tangled strands of his days and nights beset by the memory of a young man he killed and entranced by a woman who could not return his love.