The continuing saga of Danny O'Neill's struggles with harsh urban realities in early twentieth-century ChicagoThe fourth novel in James T. Farrell's pentalogy chronicles Danny O'Neill's coming of age. Recording his reactions to initiation into college life at the University of Chicago and the imminent death of his grandmother, one of his primary caretakers, Danny realizes the value of time and gains confidence in his writing abilities. As he works on his first novel, he prepares to leave his family, his Catholicism, and his neighborhood in Chicago behind for a new life as a writer in New York.''James T. Farrell's five novels about the O'Neill and O'Flaherty families are among the incontestable masterworks of American culture. The series provides a panorama of first- and second-generation immigrant experience that is indispensable reading for anyone who wishes to understand life in the twentieth-century United States.''--Alan Wald, professor of English and American culture, University of MichiganAuthor of the Studs Lonigan trilogy, James T. Farrell (1904-79) was a native of Chicago, famous for the range and depth of his realistic portraits of the city's various populations that he drew from his own experiences and keen powers of observation. Charles Fanning is a professor emeritus of English and history at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, and the editor of Farrell's Chicago Stories.
