Charles Yale Harrison was born in Philadelphia in 1898 but later moved to Montreal with his family. He reportedly left school in grade four following an argument with a teacher about The Merchant of Venice. At the age of sixteen, he took a job with the Montreal Star, but shortly after he enlisted with the Royal Montreal Regiment and fought as a machine-gunner in France and Belgium in the First World War. He was wounded in 1918 during the Battle of Amiens and returned to Montreal, where he married and had a son.

His first novel, Generals Die in Bed, was published in 1930, in both the United Kingdom and the United States, and was compared to such classic war literature as All Quiet on the Western Front and A Farewell to Arms. He subsequently wrote other books—fiction and non-fiction—but none were as well-received as Generals. When not writing, Harrison worked in a variety of jobs, as a theater manager, a reporter, and a public-relations consultant.

Following the death of his first wife in 1931, Harrison remarried but later divorced. He moved to New York, where he died in 1954, survived by his third wife.