Howard O'Hagan has been described as "The writer that CanLit forgot." His major novel, Tay John, was first published in London in 1939, where its effect was lost in the turmoil of war. It was republished in New York in 1960 but still attracted virtually no attention in Canada until it was reprinted in McClelland and Stewart's New Canadian Library in 1974, thirty-seven years after O'Hagan had completed the manuscript. It is now included regularly in courses on Canadian literature, and contemporary critics such as Margery Fee and Arnold Davidson emphasize O'Hagan's indebtedness to Tsunshian myth, his revelations of the sensibilities of a marginal people, and especially the character of the narrative strategies in the book.

Howard O'Hagan was born in Lethbridge, Alberta, in 1902 and like so many westerners, spent much of his life moving. Because his father, Dr. Thomas O'Hagan, shifted from one practice to another, Howard O'Hagan grew up...