Books: Back to Chicago

THE FACE OF TIME (366 pp.)—James T. Farrell—Vanguard ($3.75).

James T. Farrell has spent most of his writing life in the shadow of a Chicago poolroom hoodlum named Studs Lonigan. But while Farrell undoubtedly put his best talent into the creation of Studs, he has since lavished double the affection, energy and space (present count: 5 vols., 2,529 pp.) on Danny O'Neill, a sensitive, spectacled youngster growing up in the same South Side slums as Studs and James Farrell himself. Earlier novels in the O'Neill saga, e.g., A World I Never Made, My Days...