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 pa...
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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 sch...
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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 ...
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James T. Farrell's reputation rests primarily on his novels of the 1930s, in particular the interrelated series about Studs Lonigan and Danny O'Neill. Farrell repeatedly claimed that, in the tradition...
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In the following assessment of Farrell's first collection, Kronenberger praises the harsh realism of Farrell's characterization.
Although no single story in [Calico Shoes] is particularl...
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In the following review, Rothman deplores the pessimism and spiritual sterility characterizing Farrell's collection of short stories When Boyhood Dreams Come True and Other Stories.
The Studs L...
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In the following excerpt, Brown argues that Farrell, despite frequent stylistic infelicities, remains an important writer who asks crucial questions about the direction and consequences of American ca...
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In the following assessment of The Life Adventurous and Other Stories, Match observes that Farrell's writing, as a whole, provides an honest and compelling vision of American lower-class societ...
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In the following estimation of An American Dream Girl, Maloney states that Farrell possesses a place in American literary history not for his technique or style, but for the directness and power of hi...
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In the following review of An American Dream Girl, Algren argues that Farrell's lack of emotional involvement in his writing is an artistic failing.
"Work, senseless dates, fears, terror...
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In the excerpt below, O'Malley argues that Farrell's fictional world is unremittingly bleak and spiritually degenerate, the result of a decayed civilization and an impoverished Catholici...
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In this excerpt, Grattan describes Farrell as an optimistic moralist who believes in man's entitlement to freedom.
At fifty James Thomas Farrell begins to show some of the burnish of an "...
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In the following excerpted review of French Girls Are Vicious and Other Stories, Holman points out that although Farrell's primary weaknesses are his naturalistic narrative technique and flat u...
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Below, Getlein argues that Farrell's commitment to truth, his humility, and his compassion outweigh any stylistic defects.
In the longest of these nine short stories, "Ruth and Bertram,&...
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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 wri...
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In the following excerpt, the reviewer observes that Farrell's writing is marred by his inclusion of unnecessary details and facts from his own experiences.
Though he possesses certain literary...
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In the following review of A Dangerous Woman and Other Stories, Peden observes that Farrell's later fiction shows greater humor and more variety than his earlier fiction.
Among the best pieces ...
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Below, Kupferberg notes the wider range of Farrell's fiction in A Dangerous Woman and Other Stories as the author incorporates a gallery of new European characters and locales into his work.
Fo...
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In this essay, Farrell answers those critics who question autobiographical elements of his work.
I began, not as a novelist, but as a short story writer. For more than two years after I had decided to...
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In the following excerpted review, Phillips observes that several of Farrell's more recent short stories are among his best short fiction.
Childhood Is Not Forever [is] a selection of stories w...
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Below, Oates takes issue with Farrell's compression of characterization, which she sees as a distortion of truth.
Branch on Farrell's Primary Thematic Concerns:
Whether Farrell's...
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In this review of Judith and Other Stories, Barnes remarks that Farrell's work continues to be dominated by grim and hopelessly limited characters.
The works of James T. Farrell cannot be discu...
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In this excerpted paper, which was originally presented as a lecture at Southampton College in 1974, Farrell asserts that genuine writing demands both knowledge of and respect for the past.
In recent ...
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In this review, Phillips notes that although Farrell returns to the same themes and types of characters of his earlier works, one finds in this collection a mellower and warmer writer.
It astounds to ...
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In this essay, O'Connell argues for the centrality of Farrell's vision of the Irish-Catholic experience in his fiction.
James T. Farrell can be an easy mark for a critic. His faults and ...
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In this excerpt, Wald contends that Farrell's political concerns are a significant aspect of his work.
The clearest manifestations of [Leon] Trotsky's impact on Farrell were inspirationa...
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In this excerpted review of Guillotine Party and Other Stories, Trilling describes Farrell's artistic vision as inadequate to the task of exploring the complexities of modern life.
Almost all M...
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Below, Rohrberger observes that modern civilization's lack of spiritual values is the cause of individual and societal failure in Farrell's short fiction.
Best known for his Studs Loniga...
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In the following excerpt, Fried discusses the role of the city in Farrell's writing, particularly Farrell's understanding of the city and its culture as a crucial determinant of human ex...
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In the following review of Can All This Grandeur Perish? and Other Stories, Kazin finds much to condemn and praise in Farrell's short stories; repulsed by the sordidness of Farrell's sou...
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In the following estimation of Farrell's collection, Ferguson dismisses Farrell's short stories for their squalor and slovenly technique.
I got a new slant on the writings of James Farre...
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In the excerpt below, Lovett discusses Farrell's commitment to present truthfully his observations of people under the pressures of demoralizing circumstances and decaying human institutions.
F...
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Below, Rugoff finds Farrell's novella Tommy Gallagher's Crusade a frighteningly accurate portrayal of the mindless hatred that characterized the growing Fascist movement in America durin...
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In this review, Forgotson admires those stories in $1000 A Week and Other Stories that provide the reader with some understanding of the human experience, but states that the majority of the stories l...
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In the following review of To Whom It May Concern and Other Stories, Kupferberg contends that Farrell's style and ideas are most successful in his longer works.
Deutsch on Tommy Gallagher...
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Critical Essay by Arthur Voss
The world of most of Farrell's fiction is not a pretty or happy one, since, as he has said, much of his writing has been concerned with portraying "conditio...
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Critical Essay by Lewis Fried
Farrell's major fiction ("the story of America as I knew it") is funded so greatly by the struggles of his youth and maturity that we are in danger o...
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Critical Essay by Joseph W. Slade
[Farrell's] characters continually pat psychic pockets to assure themselves that their pasts are intact. Such characters rarely strip their personalities bare;...
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Critical Essay by Leonard Kriegel
What I instinctively knew when I first read Farrell now seems to me his major contribution to American writing: his stubborn insistence on the validity of all lives f...
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Critical Essay by Barry Wallenstein
A landmark in American literature has just been achieved with the publication of James T. Farrell's fiftieth book, The Dunne Family. Farrell is known as one ...
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Critical Essay by Ann Douglas
Perhaps the central reason for Farrell's neglect is that he has confronted a problem modern America has determined to evade: our sense of history predicates a visi...
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James Thomas Farrell
James T(homas) Farrell
