Originally published in 1949, Storm Below tells the story of a fictional Royal Canadian Navy ship and its crew. The adventure unfolds over six days of an escort run across the Atlantic Ocean to Newfoundland during the Second World War. The ship, the HMCS Riverford , is a composite of the vessels, mostly corvettes, that author Hugh Garner served on during his time in the Canadian navy, and the Canadian sailors whose experiences he relates are masterfully drawn from the crewmen he knew during...
Originally published in 1962, The Silence on the Shore is considered by many critics to be Hugh Garner’s best, most ambitious novel. Truly, in the person of Grace Hill, the landlady of the Toronto rooming house where most of the book’s events take place, Garner has created a fictional character never to be forgotten. Grace is a middle-aged snoop and an overweight nudist whose sexual release comes from watching wrestling matches at a hockey arena that is a thinly disguised Maple Leaf Gardens. ...