1 Why has Willard Motley become a forgotten man of American literature? His first novel, Knock on Any Door, appeared in 1947. A Chicago novel in the naturalistic tradition of Dreiser, Farrell, and Wright, Knock on Any Door tells the story of Nick Romano, "an altar boy at twelve...dead in the electric chair at twenty-one."[1] I It was an instant success. According to Robert E. Fleming, in the only book-length study of Motley to date, "Two weeks after publication, Knock on Any Door had sold forty-seven thousand copies; after two years, Appleton-Century reported three hundred fifty thousand copies in print" (Motley 61). In 1949, Knock on Any Door was made into a film staring Humphrey Bogart and John Derek. By the time of its seventeenth paperback printing, the novel could boast sales of 1,500,000 books. Motley's second novel, We Fished All Night, published in 1951, did not fare nearly so well. The critical consensus was that Motley "had spread himself too thin" (Fleming, "Motley" 118). We Fished All Night is indeed a sprawling, panoramic novel, not unlike Dos Passos's U.S.A in its attempt to explore all aspects of life in a post-war America. By concentrating on three characters rather than a single protagonist, as he had done in his first novel, Motley was able to write a novel that, as a document of the times, recommends itself in several ways: as one of the few American war novels to emphasize the life of the returning soldier; as a brilliant and detailed picture of machine politics in the Big City (again Chicago); as a discussion of post-War labor union agitation and Communism; as a depiction of the plight of minorities; and as a portrait of the frustrated artist. It may be true, as Fleming observes, that "he had taken up too many themes and thus had done justice to none" ("Motley" 118), and the novel is structurally flawed in many ways, but We Fished All Night nevertheless remains a novel waiting to be rediscovered. Despite the limited success of this novel, the author of a reference book on American writers could state as late as 1953 that Motley possessed a "household name" (Hughes 197). Motley was to publish only two more novels. Let No Man Write My Epitaph (1958) is a sequel to Knock on Any Door. It records the lives of Nick Romano's illegitimate son and younger brother following his execution. The novel expands Motley's view of the corrupting influences of the modern city, evident in the naturalistic tone of his first novel, by including a frank discussion of drug abuse. Let No Man Write My Epitaph, while not nearly the smash of Knock on Any Door, was successful enough to be filmed, with a cast that included James Darren, Shelley Winters, Burl Ives, and Ella Fitzgerald. Motley's final novel, published posthumously as Let Noon Be Fair in 1966, takes place in Mexico, Motley's adopted home, and portrays "the adverse effects America [has] had on Mexico," the ways in which "the United States is exploiting Mexico both economically and culturally" (Fleming, "Motley" 120). Let Noon Be Fair clearly shows Motley's desire to be a committed novelist, and while it thus looks back to his roots in the "proletarian writers of the thirties,"[2] it also looks far forward to a concern for the welfare of the third world that is still growing today. So why do these books go unread and unexamined? It could be because Motley is often a clumsy writer. Much of the criticism leveled at the loose construction of We Fished All Night is fury warranted, but then U.S.A. can hardly be called a "tightly-knit" work. It could also be because Motley, to his detriment, honed his style as well as his disposition on the works of Dreiser, Farren, and Wright. It could also be because he seems to have arrived after his proper time period, or because all four of his novels are massive volumes, thick with documentary, almost scientific, detail. I believe, however, that there is another, more deeply seated reason why Willard Motley is neglected, why he has not received the recognition that he deserves. …