Booked

My grandmother Nellie died when I was eight. While we were cleaning out her house, I found a paperback copy of Willard Motley’s Knock on Any Door, published in 1947, and Dad said I could keep it. I read it and reread it so many times, I can still recite passages. “Live fast, die young, and have a good-looking corpse,” its protagonist famously said.

Before Motley, I had fed joyfully on Jean Little, E. B. White, and Trixie Belden. Knock on Any Door was an entirely different brand of book. It showed me just how intentionally brutal we can be as a society. It sparked my interest in how adults treat young people — especially in prison, where their power is absolute. The novel follows the life of Nick Romano, from his days as an altar boy in Chicago to his death in the electric chair. In between is a long stint in reform school. In one heart-wrenching scene, Nick and a friend are subjected to a punishment called the bucket brigade. They have to work past the...