James Thomas Farrell, American novelist and short-story writer, was born on Chicago's South Side, the son and grandson of Irish-Catholic laborers. The young Farrell attended neighborhood parochial schools, and after graduating from high school he...

James Thomas Farrell (1904-1979), novelist and social and literary critic, was one of the most unrelenting naturalists in American literature. Born in Chicago, James Thomas Farrell attended Catholic parochial school. He worked at various jobs before...

James T. Farrell, a major novelist of the 1930s, was a self-reliant literary intellectual who adhered to a credo that many critics judged old-fashioned in the post-World War II era. Proud to identify himself with the tradition of Theodore Dreiser,...

Robert K. Landers An Honest Writer: The Life and Times of James T. Farrell. Encounter Books, 562 pages, $28.95 This superb biography of James T. Farrell shows why the genre is so vital to an appreciation of literature and the literary life....

Robert K. Landers. An Honest Life: The Life and Times of James T. Farrell. Encounter Books, 2O04. 562 pages; $29.95. The Father of Us All On Wednesday evening, February 25, 2004, Norman Mailer-pushing hard on his two wooden canes-gingerly navigated the four...

In this essay, O'Connell argues for the centrality of Farrell's vision of the Irish-Catholic experience in his fiction.

In the following excerpt from a 1957 lecture at Miami University, Farrell discusses the major influences on his writing, his opinions on authorial intentions and aesthetics, and his perspective on writers of the 1920s and 1930s.

In this excerpt, Wald contends that Farrell's political concerns are a significant aspect of his work.