Knock on Any Door

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Summary: Most loved novel of adolescence
Review: "What's life?" " A magazine." " How much it cost?" "Twenty cents." "I only gotta dime." "That's life." After 45 years I still remember parts of Knock on Any Door. I related more to that book than to any other I read as an adolescent in the 50's. Why is that? I'm not Catholic. I'm not American. I didn't speak the language of Nick. Willard Motley is an underappreciated writer who deserves the highest accolades in touching a chord in young people . The film with Humphrey Bogart directed by Nick Ray didn't do justice to the book. From the first word to the last I lived every word with Nick Romano and his life still echoes with me. Sound sentimental? No. Sounds like great writing. The music, the pool halls, the tenements, the "windy city", the guilt. It was a life to me. Thank you Mr Motley wherever you are or wherever you may be resting.

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Summary: first book
Review: I read this book 41 years ago , i was not very well educated my school only taught religion and self preservation, i left at 15 . One day i found this book on a bus and took it home it was on the shelf for a month or two then one night i started reading my first novel i could not put it down i found a new pleasure in life instead of going out every night hanging round with the gang and breaking the law for kicks i changed and i put it down to this book knock on any door, i found the author understood my feelings and it was so easy to understand thank you Willard Mottley

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Summary: Whatever you do, read this one.
Review: I was afraid to pick this book up. It was several hundred pages in a battered paperback (which would break before I even finished the book), and the print was small. But I decided to give it shot. A few hundred pages later, I drove several miles back to a junior high school gym, thinking that I'd left it there. It was in my front seat the whole time, but I couldn't bring myself to think that the trip was wasted. Once you start this book, you'll be glad to drive an awfully long way to be able to pick it up. This book drew me in in a way that few books have (I wouldn't think that a book about a person like Nick Romano could be compared to Harry Potter, but, well, here we are.) This is a novel that may just change the way you look at the world. It will change the way you look at juvenile crime and punishment, it will change the way you think of the death penalty. It's not just Nick who's stayed in my mind. It's all of the small characters. There are people who show up for about a page, and I've never been able to forget them. It's a terrible shame that Willard Motley isn't often mentioned when people discuss the greatest writers of the century; I've read my share of Fitzgerald and Hemingway and Bellow, and this book puts Motley in the same class as all of them. Not only did I put an awful lot of effort into getting my hands on the sequel, but I found myself seeking out copies of every book listed on the "other books you'll enjoy" page at the front of the book. It's that kind of novel. This book is important. Now more than ever, when, as one reviewer points out, people like Nick are being executed weekly in Texas. Get it, read it, and encourage others to do the same. Don't let this classic fall into obscurity.