Robert Stead (1880-1959) was raised in western Canada and spent much of his working life there. He began his writing career with poetry before turning to the prairie novels for which he is best remembered, among them The Bail Jumper, The Homesteaders, The Cow Puncher, Neighbours, and Grain.
In The Smoking Flax. A university graduate takes work as a farmhand on a prairie homestead, expecting to find in the experience a living counterpart to his academic studies. What he encounters instead is the reality of farm labour and the tensions running through a household where hard work and thwarted ambition have left their mark on every member of the family. A romance with the farmer’s daughter and a blackmail scheme involving her brother complicate his stay, and he is ultimately left to weigh the cost of remaining against the prospects of life beyond the farm.
