Nightmare Alley

A cool, cruel, rediscovered classic of American noir, soon to be a major motion picture directed by Guillermo del Toro.

'Read and shudder. And relish' Guardian

'A creepy, all-too-harrowing masterpiece' Washington Post

Stanton Carlisle, employed as a carny at a travelling circus watches their freak-show geek - an abject alcoholic, the object of the voyeuristic crowd's gleeful disgust and derision - and 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.

Unlike the tragic figure he sees before him, Stan is young, clever and ambitious and quick to learn from the other carnival acts. Initially teaming up with a beautiful but vulnerable woman as part of a double act in which he mesmerises her, Stan soon leaves his circus days behind him, becoming a successful spiritualist who exploits the weak and the wealthy.

But even the very best con-men can meet their match....

With a new introduction from James Smythe, Nightmare Alley is a forgotten classic of Depression-era America- a brilliant, horrifying, compulsive journey into the true darkness of the human mind.

About the Author

Nightmare Alley was American writer William Lindsay Gresham's first book, and was a bestseller, subsequently adapted into a film in 1947. The novel was in part inspired by conversations Gresham had with a former sideshow employee whom he befriended while volunteering during the Spanish Civil War. Gresham followed Nightmare Alley with one further piece of fiction, and three works of non-fiction, but was unable to replicate the success of his debut.

Gresham married three times, and his second wife, the poet and novelist Joy Davidman later (on her death bed) became the wife of British author C.S. Lewis. An early adopter of Scientology, which he later denounced, Gresham overcame his alcoholism via Alcoholics Anonymous but struggled with his mental health. Facing a diagnosis of terminal cancer, he committed suicide in 1962. In his pocket were found business cards reading, 'No Address. No Phone. No Business. No Money. Retired.'