SOURCE: A review of The Short Stories of James T. Farrell, in The New Republic, Vol. 93, No. 1197, November 10, 1937, p. 22.

In the following estimation of Farrell's collection, Ferguson dismisses Farrell's short stories for their squalor and slovenly technique.

I got a new slant on the writings of James Farrell recently, from some chaps who were no nearer the intellectual world than their own hard wisdom, and perhaps the wiser for that. They read about Studs because they had grown up in the same Chicago. "You read that Studs book?" they said. "Well all that stuff it's got in that book, I'm telling you that's really the truth, man." Part of their enthusiasm could be set down to Farrell's constant anchoring allusion to all the familiar streets, corners, El stations, hot spots and ends of town; but they got more than that, it was more real to them than that...