Studs Lonigan
Studs Lonigan is a novel trilogy by American author James T. Farrell: Young Lonigan, The Young Manhood of Studs Lonigan, and Judgment Day. In 1998, the Modern Library ranked the Studs Lonigan trilogy 29th on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.
The trilogy was adapted into a minor 1960 film and a 1979 television miniseries, both of which were simply titled Studs Lonigan.
Themes
Farrell wrote these three novels at a time of national despair. During the Great Depression, many of America’s most talented writers and artists aimed to create a singular, impactful work of art that would thoroughly reveal the injustices of capitalism and inspire a political and economic transformation of the American system.Farrell chose to use his own personal knowledge of Irish-American life on the South Side of Chicago to create a portrait of an average American slowly destroyed by the "spiritual poverty" of his environment. Both Chicago and the Catholic Church of that era are described at length and faulted. Farrell describes Studs sympathetically as Studs slowly deteriorates, changing from a tough but fundamentally good-hearted, adventurous teenage boy to an embittered, physically shattered alcoholic.