"It is painfully realistic." -The New York Times

"Almost too terrible in its realism is the story of a convict '9009' by James Hopper and Fred R. Bechdolt. It is the kind of story which makes the reader on fire against the injustice of justice." -The Graphic

"Put into commonplace language, without hysteria, it is a protest against the American penal system." -The Saturday Review

"Very real, very dramatic, and most tragical in its ending." -The Book News Monthly

"Achieves a bone-chilling effect by consistently using '9009' as the name of the protagonist." -H. Bruce Franklin, Prison Literature in America

"From cover to cover, a book of horror and grim, relentless realism. A fact-story, 9009 might have been a collaboration of Poe, Hugo, and Oscar Wilde." -Sunset

"The book is the heaviest blow the has been struck the prison system since Oscar Wilde's The Ballad of Reading Gaol." -Newark Call

"A story of prison life, authentic as to fact, that will prove a great sensation in its startling revelation of the present management of prisons." -The Publishers' Weekly

"A book decidedly out of the ordinary . . . a remarkable story. It is an intricate psychological study of an imprisoned man and an appalling indictment of our prison systems. Aside from the artistic value of the book, the sweep of the facts which it presents is staggering. As has been well said, 9009 is a question which must be answered." -Janet B. McGovern, The Los Angeles Times