SOURCE: 'The Special World of James T. Farrell," in The New York Times Book Review, December 1, 1957, p. 66.

In the following review of A Dangerous Woman and Other Stories, Peden observes that Farrell's later fiction shows greater humor and more variety than his earlier fiction.

Among the best pieces in James T. Farrell's new collection of twelve stories and a short novel are several set in the Chicago of a generation ago, which is so specifically "Farrell country" that today it is almost impossible to linger at the corner of Prairie Avenue and Fifty-eighth Street without thinking of it in terms of Farrell's fiction.

Here again are the memorable adolescents and youths of his earlier novels and short stories: Studs Lonigan and his pals, including the indefatigable Weary Reilly, tremblingly anticipating the sordid delights of a gang shag; Danny O'Neill doggedly attempting to get a date for the St...