Motley's thesis [in Knock on Any Door] is that a perfectly good boy, with Christian parents and a good social background, can be molded into a shameless criminal within a brief period by unfavorable environmental forces….

One of the chief characteristics of Motley's style is the poetic quality of his language. His vivid imagery and satisfying rhythms make him a master of prose.

Another characteristic of Motley's style is the effective use of contrast [such as] the contrast between the goodness of Nick as an altar boy and his badness afterwards…. (p. 32)

[The] design by which Motley supports his thesis is superior to that of Richard Wright [in Native Son].

For instance, Nick Romano, Motley's protagonist, is a good boy at the beginning of the story. He is kind, sympathetic, lovable, obedient to his parents, ambitious, and deeply religious. The reader is permitted to watch the transformation of this boy's character…. [In Native Son, on the other hand,] Bigger's anti-social acts can offer but limited support to the theory of environmental responsibility. Wright tells us that Bigger would have been less cruel and less barbarous under more fortunate environmental conditions, but he presents no evidence or experience from Bigger's past life to substantiate his claim. (p. 33)

There is [an appropriate symbolic] incident in Knock on Any Door in which Nick is pictured as rescuing a frightened mouse from the playful paws of a cat who is torturing it while a crowd of bystanders look on in obvious enjoyment. Throughout the story as Nick became involved deeper and deeper in crimes of violence, his mind would revert to the scene of the rescued mouse, which symbolized for him the tenderness and sympathy of a happier past.

But Motley's superiority over Wright in his logical design of character development is offset by Wright's superiority over Motley in an important aspect of plot construction. In Native Son Wright has made the long court trial a necessary part of the plot, so that without it the story would be unfinished and pointless…. But in the equally long court trial in Knock on Any Door the effect is different. No new meaning or understanding emerges. It is a recapitulation in different form of what has already been expressed or clearly implied during the previous action. It is anticlimatic and entirely unnecessary.

Motley's second book, We Fished All Night, is primarily a story of the physical, moral, and emotional impact of World War II upon the men who participated in it. Secondarily, it is a story of the blighting effect of minority status upon the three main characters…. Incidentally, it is the story of the incredible corruption of machine politics in the city of Chicago. The author has skillfully woven and interwoven the three themes around the lives of the three protagonists, making each stand out in bas-relief at regular intervals until the final catastrophe engulfs them in a pot pourrí of triumph, shame, and death. It is a continuation of the theme of Knock on Any Door … except that the environmental elements are made more inclusive and the characters more representative of the national population as a whole. (pp. 33-4)