Scorned by critics since birth, decreed dead by many, naturalism, according to Donald Pizer, is "one of the most persistent and vital strains in American fiction, perhaps the only modern literary form in America that has been both popular and significant." To define naturalism and explain its tena?cious hold throughout the twentieth century on the American creative imagination, Pizer explores six novels: James T. Farrell's Studs Lonigan, John Dos...