Nightmare Alley
 "[Gresham's] legacy was a brilliant and horrific book - read it and you'll never refer to someone as a geek again."  --The Times(London)"Written in 1946 and just reissued, Nightmare Alley was adapted into one of the most scabrous films of the 1940s. It's a grifter story, a carny story, whose main character is Stan Carlisle, a handsome con artist/fake mind reader who slowly works his way down the food chain until there's nothing left for him except the job of circus geek. It's a novel in which no ray of light ever penetrates. The novel is a fascinating curio of undoubtedly justified self-loathing -- Gresham's second wife, the poet Joy Davidman, left him for C.S. Lewis. Gresham committed suicide in 1962. The new edition has a preface by Nick Tosches, who is working on a biography of Gresham. Certainly one of the most valuable reissues of the year." --The Palm Beach Post"For contemporary audiences who have never strolled through sawdust and tinsel, the  carnival chapters ofNightmare Alley offer an unnerving slice of seedy Americana." —The Baltimore Sun"The ‘nightmare’ of the title rings true, for this delirious  and unstoppable novel…inverts the American dream. The plot turns the Horatio Alger  myth on its head and the psychology leans on Freud, but the torment, the pervading  sense that the human creature lives in a trap he or she is doomed never to escape,  comes from the heart and mind of the author. Never was noir more autobiographical  than here….Nightmare Alleyremains a masterpiece, not only due to its driving narrative  power, but because it’s underpinned by the premise that the human animal is alone,  helpless in the face of destiny, stumbling in the dark, down the nightmare alley  toward the inevitable wall of death at the end. Yet we can’t stop ourselves hoping,  and fearing, that there might be something beyond that wall. The message of this  disquieting book couldn’t be more human, yet that message is metaphysical rather  than moral." —Los Angeles Times “Nightmare Alleycombines the creepy world of Tod  Browning's movie, 'Freaks' with the relentless cynicism of a Jim Thompson novel.” —Timemagazine“For fans of vaudeville and magic, the book is a treasure trove of  trade secrets.” —Walter Kirn,The New York Times“Nightmare Alleyis a portrait  of greed seen through the rise and fall of a carny con man.” —Publishers Weekly“Gresham…wrote with vivid punch and a close understanding of the carnival world.” —Los Angeles TimesA “remarkable study in the disintegration of carnival show heel.” —The New York Times“An impressive low-life novel.” —The Observer(London)“Mr.  Gresham yanked the reviewer into the midst of his macabre and compelling novel, and kept  him a breathless captive until the tour was over. It's a truly rewarding whirl through  his nightmare alley…All of it adds up to Grade-A guignol with a touch of black magic  about it…If you enjoy hundred-proof evil-and a cogent analysis of same with your  nightcap-then, in the words of the Ten-in-One barker, hurry, hurry, hurry!” —James  MacBride,The New York Times“While Gresham is usually described as a 'popular novelist,' the epithet fails to capture his contemporary notoriety. Gresham wrote the 1946 best-seller  Nightmare Alley (dedicated to Davidman), a grotesque noir classic about the carnival  demimonde, later made into an arresting film with Tyrone Power and Joan Blondell.  One reviewer described the book as a 'tough, relentless, colorful novel that exposes  the private world of the freaks in order to comment on a sick, degrading society.'” —San Francisco Chronicle"Certainly one of the most valuable reissues of the year." —Canada.com " ...capable of eating toasted little Cormac McCarthy novels for breakfast." —Chicago Reader “William Lindsay Gresham was obsessed by the darker side  of circuses and carnivals. His knowledge was profound, his sensitivity to the vice  and viciousness lying just underneath the tinseled, gaudy, surface, remarkable.” —John Howard Reid,Hollywood Gold“Gresham…has something of Nelson Algren's mordant  power in picturing denizens of the lower depths…his is a promising contender for  heavyweight honors in the rough, tough and morbid division.” —Jack Conroy,The Chicago  Defender --This text refers to an alternatePaperbackedition.