Book description
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 his months at sea.
In his preface to Storm Below, his first novel, Garner
says: "It takes all kinds to make a world, and it also takes all
kinds to make a war -- or fight one after some of the others make
it.... They [his characters] are not even 'typical' sailors, if such
exist. All I can say to justify them is that they are drawn in the
image of hundreds who made up the Royal Canadian Navy. They do not
need an apology -- they were out there, and we won."
Hugh Garner (1913-1979) immigrated to Canada with his parents
from Yorkshire, England, in 1919, settling in Toronto. In the 1930s he
fought in the Spanish Civil War with the International Brigades. His
most famous novel is Cabbagetown, which he published in 1950 in
an abridged version, later released in its entirety in 1968. In 1963
he won the Governor General's Award for Hugh Garner's Best Stories.
Paul Stuewe is the author of The Storms Below: The Turbulent
Life and Times of Hugh Garner, which was shortlisted for the
City of Toronto Book Award in 1988, and Hugh Garner and His
Works (1986). Currently, he is an associate professor of English
at Green Mountain College in Vermont.
