Studs Lonigan

Studs Lonigan is a novel trilogy by American author James T. Farrell Young Lonigan 1932, The Young Manhood of Studs Lonigan 1934, and Judgment Day 1935. In 1998, the Modern Library ranked the Studs Lonigan trilogy at 29th on its list of the 100 best Englishlanguage novels of the 20th century.

Farrell wrote these three novels at a time of national despair. During the Great Depression, many of Americas most gifted writers and artists aspired to create a single, powerful work of art that would fully expose the evils of capitalism and lead to a political and economic overhaul of the American system.citation needed Farrell chose to use his own personal knowledge of IrishAmerican 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 IrishAmerican Roman 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 goodhearted, adventurous teenage boy to an embittered, physically shattered alcoholic.Parts of Farrells novels were made into a B movie in 1960, directed by Irving Lerner and starring Christopher Knight in the title role. Other cast members included Frank Gorshin, Venetia Stevenson, and Jack Nicholson in one of his first movie roles. ........

Source: Wikipedia