''Nightmare Alley'' is a novel by
William Lindsay Gresham
William Lindsay Gresham (; August 20, 1909 – September 14, 1962) was an American novelist and non-fiction author particularly well-regarded among readers of noir. His best-known work is '' Nightmare Alley'' (1946), which was adapted to film i ...
published in 1946. It is a study of the lowest depths of showbiz and its sleazy inhabitantsthe dark, shadowy world of a second-rate
carnival
Carnival is a Catholic Christian festive season that occurs before the liturgical season of Lent. The main events typically occur during February or early March, during the period historically known as Shrovetide (or Pre-Lent). Carnival typi ...
filled with hustlers, scheming
grifters, and Machiavellian
femmes fatales
A ''femme fatale'' ( or ; ), sometimes called a maneater or vamp, is a stock character of a mysterious, beautiful, and seductive woman whose charms ensnare her lovers, often leading them into compromising, deadly traps. She is an archetype of ...
.
Gresham attributed the origin of ''Nightmare Alley'' to conversations he had with a former carnival worker while they were both serving as volunteers with the Loyalist forces in the
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebelión, lin ...
. Gresham wrote the novel, his first, while working as an editor for a "
true crime
True crime is a nonfiction literary, podcast, and film genre in which the author examines an actual crime and details the actions of real people associated with and affected by criminal events.
The crimes most commonly include murder; about 40 per ...
," pulp magazine in New York City during the 1940s. He outlined the plot and wrote the first six chapters over a period of two years, then finished the book in four months. Each chapter is represented by a different
Tarot card
The tarot (, first known as ''trionfi (cards), trionfi'' and later as ''tarocchi'' or ''tarocks'') is a pack of playing cards, used from at least the mid-15th century in various parts of Europe to play card games such as Tarocchini. From their ...
.
Plot
Stanton Carlisle watches the
geek show
Geek shows were an act in traveling carnivals and circuses of early America and were often part of a larger sideshow.
The billed performer's act consisted of a single geek, who stood in the center ring to chase live chickens. It ended with the ...
at a
Ten-in-One where he has recently begun working. He later asks the carnival's
talker
A talker is a chat system that people use to talk to each other over the Internet. Dating back to the 1980s, they were a predecessor of instant messaging.
A talker is a communication system precursor to MMORPGs and other virtual worlds such as '' ...
Clem Hoately where geeks come from. Clem explains that geeks are "made": a sideshow owner finds an alcoholic
bum and offers him a temporary job with a steady supply of liquor. Initially, the bum is only asked to pretend to be a geek, using a razor blade to slice chickens' necks and then faking the drinking of the blood. After a few weeks, the owner threatens to end the job and replace the bum with a "real" geek, and the fear of sobering up terrifies the bum into actually biting the chickens. Thus, a geek is made.
Stan performs
sleight of hand
Sleight of hand (also known as prestidigitation or ''legerdemain'' ()) refers to fine motor skills when used by performing artists in different art forms to entertain or manipulate. It is closely associated with close-up magic, card magic, card ...
tricks in the
sideshow
In North America, a sideshow is an extra, secondary production associated with a circus, carnival, fair, or other such attraction.
Types
There are four main types of classic sideshow attractions:
*The Ten-in-One offers a program of ten seq ...
but studies under the carnival's
mentalist
Mentalism is a performing art in which its practitioners, known as mentalists, appear to demonstrate highly developed mental or intuitive abilities. Performances may appear to include hypnosis, telepathy, clairvoyance, divination, precogniti ...
Zeena to learn a refined "code" act, where performers
memorize verbal cues that allow them to appear
psychic
A psychic is a person who claims to use extrasensory perception (ESP) to identify information hidden from the normal senses, particularly involving telepathy or clairvoyance, or who performs acts that are apparently inexplicable by natural laws, ...
by accurately answering written audience questions. Stan also begins to pick up Zeena's talent for
cold reading. He eventually leaves the carnival with the beautiful and naïve electric girl Molly Cahill to perform a team code act.
Their act becomes very successful, but Stan grows bored and transforms himself into Reverend Carlisle, an upstanding
spiritualist
Spiritualism is the metaphysical school of thought opposing physicalism and also is the category of all spiritual beliefs/views (in monism and dualism) from ancient to modern. In the long nineteenth century
The ''long nineteenth century'' i ...
preacher offering
séance
A séance or seance (; ) is an attempt to communicate with spirits. The word ''séance'' comes from the French word for "session", from the Old French ''seoir'', "to sit". In French, the word's meaning is quite general: one may, for example, spe ...
sessions with the help of his
medium
Medium may refer to:
Science and technology
Aviation
*Medium bomber, a class of war plane
* Tecma Medium, a French hang glider design
Communication
* Media (communication), tools used to store and deliver information or data
* Medium of ...
. Stan gains a devoted following, but the stress of leading a false life leads him to seek the help of a
psychologist
A psychologist is a professional who practices psychology and studies mental states, perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and social processes and behavior. Their work often involves the experimentation, observation, and interpretation of how indi ...
named Lilith Ritter, who seduces and then begins controlling him. Stan pleads constantly for them to go away together, and Lilith eventually agrees, suggesting the Rev. Carlisle swindle a rich man for the getaway money. They settle on Ezra Grindle, a ruthless
auto tycoon with a
skeptical
Skepticism, also spelled scepticism, is a questioning attitude or doubt toward knowledge claims that are seen as mere belief or dogma. For example, if a person is skeptical about claims made by their government about an ongoing war then the p ...
interest in the
occult
The occult, in the broadest sense, is a category of esoteric supernatural beliefs and practices which generally fall outside the scope of religion and science, encompassing phenomena involving otherworldly agency, such as magic and mysticism a ...
. Stan manages to convince Grindle of his powers, and the businessman becomes a devoted spiritualist.
Stan keeps Grindle hooked by promising to reunite him with his deceased college sweetheart Dorrie, who died in a botched
back-alley abortion
An unsafe abortion is the termination of a pregnancy by people lacking the necessary skills, or in an environment lacking minimal medical standards, or both. An unsafe abortion is a life-threatening procedure. It includes self-induced abortions, a ...
Grindle convinced her to seek. A reluctant Molly plays "Dorrie" in a series of sessions but eventually breaks character, destroying the illusion. In a rage Stan punches Molly and Grindle and flees the scene. At Lilith's suggestion he decides to go into hiding with Grindle's money but later discovers that Lilith has stolen a majority of it by replacing the five-hundred-dollar bills with singles. When he confronts her, she tells him that he is deluded and attempts to have him committed to a mental institution, and he narrowly escapes. He flees and resorts to performing as a mentalist at increasingly shoddy venues, trying to evade the men he falsely believes Grindle is sending after him. During this time, Molly takes up with a gambler reminiscent of her father, and gives birth to a son. Eventually Stan becomes a hobo, staying afloat by giving Tarot readings and selling
horoscopes
A horoscope (or other commonly used names for the horoscope in English include natal chart, astrological chart, astro-chart, celestial map, sky-map, star-chart, cosmogram, vitasphere, radical chart, radix, chart wheel or simply chart) is an ast ...
, but ends up murdering a police officer who attacks him while he sells his merchandise. A final reconnection with Zeena provides him an opportunity to again make living in the carnival, but he breaks completely and descends into alcoholism and depression when he discovers through a newspaper article that Lilith has wed Grindle.
His life in shambles, a drunk Stan finds a carnival owner and asks to join the sideshow as a palm reader. The owner gives Stan some whiskey but refuses his proposal, saying the show is full. But as Stan begins to stumble out, the owner changes his tune and invites Stan back in with a job offer: "Of course, it's only temporary – just until we get a real geek."
Reception
In a 2010 review, the
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made h ...
–winning book critic
Michael Dirda
Michael Dirda (born 1948) is a book critic for the ''Washington Post''. He has been a Fulbright Fellow and won a Pulitzer Prize in 1993.
Career
Having studied at Oberlin College for his undergraduate degree in 1970, Dirda took an M.A. in 1974 and ...
proclaimed, "I was utterly unprepared for its raw, Dostoevskian power... It's not often that a novel leaves a weathered and jaded reviewer like myself utterly flattened, but this one did....it's more than just a steamy noir classic. As a portrait of the human condition, ''Nightmare Alley'' is a creepy, all-too-harrowing masterpiece."
Author and creative writing professor
Dwight V. Swain
Dwight Vreeland Swain (November 17, 1915 – February 24, 1992), born in Rochester, Michigan, was an American author, screenwriter and teacher. Swain was a member of the Oklahoma Writers Hall of Fame.
Career
His first published story was "Henry ...
described the conclusion of ''Nightmare Alley'' as an exemplar of a novel with an unhappy ending that was nonetheless a "fitting ending," where the protagonist brought misfortune on himself.
Editions
* (reprinted in) ''Crime Novels: American Noir of the 1930s and 40s'', Robert Polito, ed. (
Library of America
The Library of America (LOA) is a nonprofit publisher of classic American literature. Founded in 1979 with seed money from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Ford Foundation, the LOA has published over 300 volumes by authors rangi ...
, 1997)
2010 reprintby
New York Review Books
New York Review Books (NYRB) is the publishing division of ''The New York Review of Books''. Its imprints are New York Review Books Classics, New York Review Books Collections, The New York Review Children's Collection, New York Review Comics, N ...
2013 reprintwith four Gresham essays on fortune-telling and freak shows, by
Centipede Press
Centipede Press is an American independent book and periodical publisher focusing on horror, weird tales, crime narratives, science fiction, gothic novels, fantasy art, and studies of literature, music and film. Its earliest imprints were Cocytus ...
,
Bret Wood
Bret Wood is an Atlanta-based film director and author.
Film career
Wood was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and attended the University of Tennessee. After living in New York City, where he was hired by Kino International, he moved to Atlanta ...
, ed.
Adaptations
*A
film adaptation of the same name - as a
film noir
Film noir (; ) is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and motivations. The 1940s and 1950s are generally regarded as the "classic period" of American ' ...
starring
Tyrone Power
Tyrone Edmund Power III (May 5, 1914 – November 15, 1958) was an American actor. From the 1930s to the 1950s, Power appeared in dozens of films, often in swashbuckler roles or romantic leads. His better-known films include '' Jesse James'', ...
as Stanton Carlisle - was released in 1947.
*A
graphic novel
A graphic novel is a long-form, fictional work of sequential art. The term ''graphic novel'' is often applied broadly, including fiction, non-fiction, and anthologized work, though this practice is highly contested by comic scholars and industry ...
adaptation of the novel was produced in 2003 by underground cartoonist
Spain Rodriguez
Manuel Rodriguez (March 2, 1940 – November 28, 2012), better known as Spain or Spain Rodriguez, was an American underground cartoonist who created the character Trashman. His experiences on the road with the motorcycle club, the Road Vultures M ...
.
*A musical by Jonathan Brielle, directed by Gil Cates. It opened on April 21, 2010 at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles.
[Fick, Davi]
"NIGHTMARE ALLEY"
Musical Cyberspace, February 23, 2010.
*A
film adaptation of the same name - as a
neo-noir
Neo-noir is a revival of film noir, a genre that had originally flourished during the post-World War II era in the United Statesroughly from 1940 to 1960. The French term, ''film noir'', translates literally to English as "black film", indicating ...
psychological thriller
Psychological thriller is a genre combining the thriller and psychological fiction genres. It is commonly used to describe literature or films that deal with psychological narratives in a thriller or thrilling setting.
In terms of context and co ...
starring
Bradley Cooper
Bradley Charles Cooper (born January 5, 1975) is an American actor and filmmaker. He is the recipient of various accolades, including a British Academy Film Award and two Grammy Awards, in addition to nominations for nine Academy Awards, si ...
as Stanton Carlisle - was released in 2021.
References
{{reflist
1946 American novels
2010 musicals
American novels adapted into films
Rinehart & Company books