Farrell's most striking technique is an almost photographic realism. Having grown up in the milieu he describes, he knows the characters and the setting intimately, and he renders them with a realism and an objectivity that is so close to case study that the Studs Lonigan trilogy is today more often studied in sociology classes than in literature courses. This realistic approach, a characteristic of Farrell's writings, led him to develop a different sense of imagery, an urban imagery replete with patterns of light and dark, of openness and confinement, an imagery that takes advantage of the manmade structures, from the sidewalks and vacant lots to the architectural side of the city. His prose style is therefore markedly nonlyrical, in places even ugly, but it conveys the reality he is trying to recreate. Farrell consistently refuses to romanticize his characters.

They may romanticize themselves and their own lives...