Enter your mobile number or email address below and we'll send you a link to download the free Kindle Reading App. Then you can start reading Kindle books on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.
Apple
Android
Windows Phone
Android
To get the free app, enter your email address or mobile phone number.
Best Books of the Year So Far
Looking for something great to read? Browse our editors' picks for 2015's Best Books of the Year So Far in fiction, nonfiction, mysteries, children's books, and much more.
$10.36
FREE Shipping on orders over $35.
Only 17 left in stock (more on the way).
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
Gift-wrap available.
Frequently Bought Together
{"currencyCode":"USD","itemData":[{"priceBreaksMAP":null,"buyingPrice":10.36,"ASIN":"1590173481","moqNum":1,"isPreorder":0},{"priceBreaksMAP":null,"buyingPrice":9.99,"ASIN":"B0007ZEO8C","moqNum":1,"isPreorder":0}],"shippingId":"1590173481::nOA6eEbD8MbeoBNRSQHGSklBLtUoW1PS6eeCbJxtEd4BpsmnnGdLjkBcGhU6%2FNzzBwxecha1kgvdGjCGW02yYfT5mYc4yQKQij%2FNmgIbO3NC5RoDYX2OMg%3D%3D,B0007ZEO8C::XU1iQ9BQFEN8JF9BYtJkACIN%2Bh3hxfEkTKxsdwGQwyYioNI8s67ury37QgT1G%2FhZA0dpv%2BGfNPWDjBFItb3o%2BgqJayvwyTtsDWHarn3oEsRMLAsT9gltsA%3D%3D","sprites":{"addToWishlist":["wl_one","wl_two","wl_three"],"addToCart":["s_addToCart","s_addBothToCart","s_add3ToCart"],"preorder":["s_preorderThis","s_preorderBoth","s_preorderAll3"]},"shippingDetails":{"xy":"same"},"tags":["x","y","z","w"],"strings":{"addToWishlist":["Add to Wish List","Add both to Wish List","Add all three to Wish List","Add all four to Wish List"],"addToCart":["Add to Cart","Add both to Cart","Add all three to Cart","Add all four to Cart"],"showDetailsDefault":"Show availability and shipping details","shippingError":"An error occurred, please try again","hideDetailsDefault":"Hide availability and shipping details","priceLabel":["Price:","Price for both:","Price for all three:","Price For All Four:"],"preorder":["Pre-order this item","Pre-order both items","Pre-order all three items","Pre-order all four items"]}}
This shopping feature will continue to load items. In order to navigate out of this carousel please use your heading shortcut key to navigate to the next or previous heading.
Best Books of the Month
Want to know our Editors' picks for the best books of the month? Browse Best Books of the Month, featuring our favorite new books in more than a dozen categories.
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.
Comment
Was this review helpful to you?
Yes No
Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
If this review is inappropriate, please let us know.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
15 of 15 people found the following review helpful
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.
1 Comment
Was this review helpful to you?
Yes No
Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
If this review is inappropriate, please let us know.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
18 of 19 people found the following review helpful
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.
Comment
Was this review helpful to you?
Yes No
Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
If this review is inappropriate, please let us know.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
This amazing, grim novel is the ideal noir, in film or literature. If you like the tropes, gestures and sheer style of noir, then you can't go wrong with this book, because they are there in almost every line, every element of plot, especially the long denoument which is both foreseeable and satisfying. This is a great novel of the kind and of the period. If you giggle at the dialogue of "The Big Sleep," then you'll find this book satisfying.
If you're a different sort of reader though, who loves the beauty of the dialogue of "The Big Sleep," for whom noir is as much about ideas and a point of view, then you'll find this book a masterpiece. It's easy to call the book cynical, but it's not at all - the main character is cynical, and he both exploits that cynicism and is trapped by it, and his cynicism reflects that found in American society. Noir stories improvise their own sets of morals and values and, if the stories work, those ideas makes sense in the context, and in "Nightmare Alley" they work brilliantly and with great power. The book is as grim as it gets, but the power of Gresham's writing makes it almost relentlessly gripping; his lines and dialogue are excellent, and so is his structure. The pacing is excellent, the characterizations are not just effective but creatively done - these are real people, even the minor figures - and the overall shape, the way Gresham places his chapters, is terrific. His subject and context may be pulpy, but the writing is deeply skillful and without cliché. And what is perhaps most exciting and satisfying is that Gresham goes, without fear and sensationalism, so deeply into the possibilities of human cynicism and depravity, far deeper than even Jim Thompson, and that is what noir is all about. In it's own way, this is a great American novel.
Comment
Was this review helpful to you?
Yes No
Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
If this review is inappropriate, please let us know.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Amazon Giveaway allows you to run promotional giveaways in order to create buzz, reward your audience, and attract new followers and customers. Learn more
This item: Nightmare Alley (New York Review Books Classics)
![]({"http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51nLI%2BMmtUL._SX311_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg":[313,499],"http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51nLI%2BMmtUL._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg":[217,346]})
