The List

(page 5 of 10)

THREE-ACT TRAGEDY

The Studs Lonigan trilogy, by James T. Farrell
Young Lonigan (1932); The Young Manhood of Studs Lonigan (1934); Judgment Day (1935)

"He told himself that he'd have to go out now in the battle of life and start socking away."

The story: The seemingly inevitable decline of William "Studs" Lonigan, a tough Irish Catholic lad from the South Side whose brutish persona masks his inexpressible longing for a better life

Why the book resonates: Set primarily in Washington Park, the Lonigan stories preserve a portrait of a Chicago neighborhood as it succumbs to change—but most notable is Farrell's unrelenting realism. Like the best of Dreiser, whose novels the young writer encountered with "wonder and awe," Farrell's writing elicits tragedy simply by depicting his protagonists' mundane lives. The trilogy's realism had a wide-ranging effect, influencing even that fantastic fabulist Kurt Vonnegut, who delivered Farrell's eulogy. "He showed me through his books that it was perfectly all right, perhaps even useful and beautiful, to say what life really looked like," Vonnegut said. "Until I read him, I wished only to be well received in polite company."

The author (1904-79): Born into a family of teamsters, the second of 15 children. Grew up in Studs's stomping grounds; studied at the University of Chicago. Moved to New York; buried in Evanston's Calvary Cemetery. 
—G. J.

 
 

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