James Thomas Farrell

• Birth Name — James Thomas Farrell • Born — 27 February 1904 • Birthplace — Chicago, Illinois, U.S. • Died — 22 August 1979 • Place of death — New York City, U.S. • Resting Place — Calvary Cemetery • Notable Works — Studs Lonigan • Awards — Emerson-Thoreau Medal (1979)

Farrell was born in Chicago, to a large Irish-American family that included siblings Earl, Joseph, Helen, John and Mary. In addition, there were several other siblings who died during childbirth, as well as one who died from the 1918 flu pandemic. His father was a teamster, and his mother a domestic servant. His parents were too poor to provide for him, and he went to live with his grandparents when he was three years old. Raised Catholic on the Chicago's South Side, Farrell attended St. Anselm Catholic School and Mt. Carmel High School then known as St. Cyril High School, with future Egyptologist Richard Anthony Parker. He then attended the University of Chicago. He began writing when he was 21 years old. A novelist, journalist, and short story writer, he was known for his realistic descriptions of the working class South Side Irish, especially in the novels about the character Studs Lonigan. Farrell based his writing on his own experiences, particularly those that he included in his celebrated "Danny O'Neill Pentalogy" series of five novels. Among the writers who acknowledged Farrell as an inspiration was Norman Mailer:

Farrell was also active in Trotskyist politics and joined the Socialist Workers Party (SWP). He came to agree with Albert Goldman and Felix Morrows' criticism of the SWP and Fourth International management. With Goldman, he ended his participation with the group in 1946 to join the Workers' Party. Within the Workers' Party, Goldman and Farrell worked closely. In 1948, they developed criticisms of its policies, claiming that the party should endorse the Marshall Plan and also Norman Thomas' presidential candidacy. Having come to believe that only capitalism could defeat Stalinism, they left to join the Socialist Party of America. During the late 1960s, disenchanted with the political "center", while impressed with the SWP's involvement in the Civil Rights and US anti-Vietnam War movements, he reestablished communication with his former comrades of two decades earlier. Farrell attended one or more SWP-sponsored Militant Forum events (probably in NYC), but never rejoined the Trotskyist movement. In 1976, he became a founding member of the neoconservative Committee on the Present Danger.

• Illustration — Farrell's grave at Calvary Cemetery Farrell was married three times, to two women. He married his first wife Dorothy Butler in 1931. After divorcing her, in 1941 he married stage actress Hortense Alden, with whom he had two sons, Kevin and John. They divorced in 1955, and later that year he remarried Dorothy Farrell. They separated again in 1958 but remained legally married until his death. She died in 2005. Farrell died at his home in Manhattan on August 22, 1979, and was buried at Calvary Cemetery in Evanston.

Studs Lonigan trilogy • Young Lonigan (1932) • The Young Manhood of Studs Lonigan (1934) • Judgment Day (1935) Danny O'Neill pentalogy • A World I Never Made (1936) • No Star Is Lost (1938) • Father and Son (1940) • My Days of Anger (1943) • The Face of Time (1953) Bernard Carr trilogy • Bernard Clare (1946) • The Road Between (1949) • Yet Other Waters (1952) Other novels • Gas-House McGinty (1933) • Ellen Rogers (1941) • This Man and This Woman (1951) • Boarding House Blues (1961) • The Silence of History (1963) • What Time Collects (1964) • Lonely for the Future (1966) • New Year's Eve/1929 (1967) • A Brand New Life (1968) • Invisible Swords (1971) • The Dunne Family (1976) • The Death of Nora Ryan (1978) • Sam Holman (1994) • Dreaming Baseball (2007)

• Calico Shoes and Other Stories (1934) • Guillotine Party and Other Stories (1935) • Can All This Grandeur Perish? and Other Stories (1937) • $1000 a Week and Other Stories (1942) • To Whom It May Concern and Other Stories (1944) • When Boyhood Dreams Come True and Other Stories (1946) • The Life Adventurous and Other Stories (1947) • An American Dream Girl and Other Stories (1950) • French Girls Are Vicious and Other Stories (1955) • An Omnibus of Short Stories (1956) • A Dangerous Woman and Other Stories (1957) • Side Street and Other Stories (1961) • Sound of a City (1962) • Childhood Is Not Forever (1969) • Judith and Other Stories (1973) • Olive and Mary Anne: Five Tales (1977) • Eight Short, Short Stories (1981)

Farrell and James Farrell.

James Thomas Farrell is recorded as writer, novelist and literary critic.

• Farrell, James T. "Literature and ideology." College English 3.7 (1942): 611-623 online. • Flynn, Dennis, Jack Salzman, and James T. Farrell. "An Interview with James T. Farrell." Twentieth Century Literature 22.1 (1976): 1–10. online