SOURCE: A review of People Who Knock on the Door, in Washington Post Book World, Vol. XV, No. 40, October 6, 1985, p. 6.

Below, the critic offers a negative review of People Who Knock on the Door.

Even good novelists occasionally have a lapse, and Patricia Highsmith had a very bad lapse of several hundred pages when she wrote People Who Knock on the Door. It's the story of Arthur, 17, and the effects on him and his family when his father becomes a born-again Christian and tries to revise all their lives and impose his moral views on others.

Things come to a head when Arthur's girlfriend reveals that she is pregnant and opts for an abortion. Because Arthur approves the decision, he is put out of the house and denied funds for college. Meanwhile his younger brother Robbie becomes the father's faithful ally. Mom tries to keep peace by keeping...