SOURCE: "The Literary Record," in James T. Farrell: The Revolutionary Socialist Years, New York University Press, 1978, pp. 132-43.

In this excerpt, Wald contends that Farrell's political concerns are a significant aspect of his work.

The clearest manifestations of [Leon] Trotsky's impact on Farrell were inspirational and political; but there was a special bond in their mutual search for "new perspectives" for Marxist writers and intellectuals. As a novelist, Farrell emerged from the 1920s looking favorably upon the literary tradition of modern realism and naturalism; but as an intellectual, with a wide-ranging knowledge of history and philosophy, he condemned the limited vistas of Dreiser, Anderson, and others. Originally, Farrell advanced beyond these other writers in his assimilation of the pragmatic social philosophy and psychology of Dewey and Mead. Like the New York intellectuals around Partisan Review, Farrell believed in the necessity of literary as well as Marxist tradition; and...