author of the yellow sweater and other stories

"A fighting, hard-drinking, hard-living writer Hugh Gartner didn't fit in with the effete Canadian writers of the mid-century, who seemed to be either English professors or poets of exquisite sensibility who had turned to prose. Forget trendy ideas of the northern siege mentality, of survival, of the unforgiving landscape, and all that. Garner had no such grand conception of his art. He wrote about the people, places and events he knew—without frills. And, since Canadian people and places were what he knew, his work ended up portraying Canadian life, especially in the inner cities, better than almost anyone else during his time."