- ISBN13: 9781590173480
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
Nightmare Alley begins with an extraordinary description of a freak-show geek—alcoholic and abject and the object of the voyeuristic crowd’s gleeful disgust and derision—going about his work at a county fair. Young Stan Carlisle is working as a carny, and he wonders how a man could fall so low. There’s no way in hell, he vows, that anything like that will ever happen to him.
And since Stan is clever and ambitious and not without a useful streak of rut. . . More >>
Follows the 20-or-so year career of Stanton Carlisle, from carny sleight-of-hand artist, to vaudeville mentalist, to (in)famous spiritualist, as he squares his broad shoulders and strides proudly through life, taking what he wants – and revenging some old injuries – until, in search of that one really big score, he falls in with a partner even more ruthless than himself. The title refers to the key to any good con, every man’s flight from his innermost fears. Carlisle learns early to “find out what they’re afraid of. ” Supporting characters are (mostly) colorful and real. The narrative changes moods at times, from straight journalistic style to stream-of-consciousness a-la the young John Dos Passos, all used effectively. This novel is available with five others of its kind in “Crime Novels, American Noir of the 30s and 40s,” published by Library of America, and worth every cent of the $35 list price.
Rating: 4 / 5
Although largely forgotten today, Gresham’s NIGHTMARE ALLEY was one of the great bestsellers of the 1940s–a grotesque tale of the rise of a Stanton Carlisle, a carny worker who moves up from bilking rubes at a traveling ten-in-one show to become a fake spiritualist bilking the rich and famous in an church elaborately rigged to support his fake senances. But success is fleeting, and Stan falls prey to the very insecurities that have driven him to success. When it comes, his fall has all the horror of being dropped into a blast furnace.
Gresham writes in a tough-voiced pulp fiction tone that lingers over the most unsavory aspects of the story–sometimes to the point of nausea–and the result is a harsh vision of the world as a “nightmare alley,” a one-way run with unseen hounds hell after you and death when you meet the brick wall at the end. The characters are memorable: the glib-tongued Stan, embroiled in his own Freudian hell; the hardknocks but likeable Zeena, a carny psychic who starts Stan on his career; the pretty but stupid Molly, who becomes Stan’s unwilling partner in crime; and, always lurking somewhere in the background, the carny geek, the ultimate portrait in degredation and desperation, a monsterous man-made grotesque whose image frames the novel.
The novel is deliberately disorienting, and each new section of the book is heralded by the use of a Tarot card to remarkable effect. NIGHTMARE ALLEY is powerful stuff, and it shouldn’t be read on an empty stomach. Recommended, but brace yourself: when you pick up the book you’ll find yourself on an express elevator, and it’s straight down all the way.
Rating: 5 / 5
Gresham writes a suspenseful and “not so nice” story about Stanton Carlisle — a young man who starts his working career in freak / carnival show. Stanton and his friends travel around the country bilking people into believing that Stan can predict the future. Gresham reveals the tricks of the trade as he shows how fortunetellers and mind readers conduct their business.
Stanton wants the big time action and he has the ability to go far. He is glib, charismatic and a skilled cold fortuneteller. After marrying fellow carnival worked Molly, he and she go to work acquiring larger targets. After becoming a mail-order minister, they conduct seances and allow rich people to communicate with the dead. Stanton and Molly and rewarded handsomely. However, even that isn’t enough as Stan pushes his luck and goes after a major capitalist in order to clear huge amounts of money.
The gritty writing is similar James M. Cain’s (Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice) and is unafraid to reveal the characters’ seedier nature. The format of the book is also clever — showing Stanton’s rise to power (and ultimate demise) through the use of tarot cards at the start of each chapter. My only complaint was that it was sometimes hard to follow. I found that at the start of almost every chapter I felt a sense of disorientation until I figured out what was going on. The continuity was weak. However, I liked the book tremendously — especially when it revealed Stanton’s ruses.
Rating: 4 / 5
The excellent movie with Tyrone Power isn’t currently available — too bad. It was written by the greatest Hollywood writer, Jules Furthman, who trimmed away some of Gresham’s more baroque touches and flatulent moralizing (and gave it a great last line, until Darryl Zanuck softened the ending). As for the book itself, it’s a blistering portrait of hubris and its consequences, and some of the writing (the early description of the geek at work) is as tough and uncompromising as any American writing ever. An unforgettable experience.
Rating: 5 / 5
I read this book recently and I also saw the movie with Tyrone Power. In my opinion the book is far superior. It is tough and unapologetic, and in my opinion represents the character of Stanton Carlisle as it really would be given his upbringing and interests. Carlisle is a mean carney, always on the lookout to better himself whether at someone else’s expense or through his own cleverness. He takes what he wants when he wants it, and his rise and fall is honest and interesting.
On the other hand, the movie version of “Nightmare Alley” has too many Hollywood touches and comes across as dishonest. In the movie Carlisle is truly in love with his wife and does what he does for her benefit as well as his own. This is nice and all, but it comes across as very, very phoney since we already know quite a bit about Carlisle’s ruthlessness and selfishness. And there’s a happy ending in the movie. The book ends unhappily but honestly, and the ending is foreshadowed by earlier events. The one thing to recommend the movie is Tyrone Power’s performance, which is only bettered, in my opinion, by his wonderful role as the rich aristocrat in “Son of Fury. ”
Rating: 5 / 5