Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | A World I Never Made | 1936 | James T. Farrell | Buy |
| 2 | Father and Son | 1940 | James T. Farrell | Buy |
| 3 | My Days of Anger | 1954 | James T. Farrell | Buy |
| 4 | The Face of Time | 1960 | James T. Farrell | Buy |
| 5 | No Star is Lost | 2007 | James T. Farrell | Buy |
The Danny O’Neill Pentalogy is James T. Farrell’s second major work of fiction, following the Studs Lonigan trilogy. The five novels trace Danny O’Neill from early childhood through young adulthood in an Irish-American family on Chicago’s South Side. Danny is raised by his grandmother and aunt rather than his own parents, a family arrangement driven by poverty, and much of the series explores how that displacement shapes his sense of identity. The first book, A World I Never Made, was published in 1936 and established the autobiographical tone that runs through the whole cycle.
Farrell drew heavily on his own upbringing for the series. Like Danny, Farrell was raised by relatives rather than his parents and grew up surrounded by the same pressures of working-class Catholic life in Chicago. The books are slower and more reflective than the Studs Lonigan novels, spending long passages on daily routines, family arguments, and the small indignities of poverty. Danny’s gradual awakening to books and ideas gives the series a forward momentum that the Lonigan trilogy deliberately lacks, making it a more optimistic (if still unflinching) portrait of the same world.