to William McCann: No writer has described a specific area of American society so thoroughly and comprehensively as Farrell did in the seven novels of Studs Lonigan and Danny O'Neill (1932-43). A consummate realist in viewpoint and method, he turned repeatedly in his fiction to the subject he knew best, the Irish Catholic neighborhood of Chicago's South Side. Drawing on lacerating personal experience, Farrell wrote about people who were victims of injurious social circumstances and of their own spiritual and intellectual shortcomings. He depicted human frustration, ignorance, cruelty, violence, and moral degeneration with sober, relentless veracity....Despite his Marxist leanings, Farrell's fiction is not that of a reformer, or a doctrinaire theorist, but rather the patient humorless representation of ways of life and states of mind he abhors….Farrell’s place in American letters, however, as certainly the most industrious and probably the most powerful writer in the naturalistic tradition stemming from Frank Norris and Dreiser, was solidly established with the Lonegan--O'Neil series. References Further reading Branch, Edgar M. "Studs Lonigan: Symbolism and Theme." College English 23.3 (1961): 191-196 online. Douglas, Ann. "Studs Lonigan and the Failure of History in Mass Society: A Study in Claustrophobia." American Quarterly 29.5 (1977): 487-505 online. Fanning, Charles, and Ellen Skerrett. "James T. Farrell and Washington Park: The Novel as Social History." Chicago History 8 (1979): 80-91. Onkey, Lauren. "James Farrell's Studs Lonigan Trilogy and the Anxieties of Race." Éire-Ireland 40.2 (2005): 104-118. excerpt Rosenthal, T. G. "Studs Lonigan and the Search for an American Tragedy." Bulletin. British Association for American Studies 7 (1963): 46-54 online. Shiffman, Daniel. "Ethnic Competitors in Studs Lonigan." Melus 24.3 (1999): 67-79. Weathers, Glenda B. "The Territorial Imperative in 'Studs Lonigan'." South Atlantic Review 51.1 (1986): 101-113 online. External links American novel series 1960 films Films directed by Irving Lerner Novels set in Chicago American novels adapted into films 1970s American television series Films scored by Jerry Goldsmith United Artists films