Nightmare Alley (Paperback)

by William Lindsay Gresham (Author) "THE LIGHT ... IF HE COULD ONLY MAKE IT TO THE LIGHT . . ..." (more)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Stanton Carlisle runs toward a light at the end of a corridor of outstretched arms. In underground cartoonist Rodriguez's skilled hands, such imagery gains an inexorable visual and narrative logic. Like the original 1946 novel by Gresham, and the subsequent Tyrone Power film, this Nightmare Alley is a portrait of greed seen through the rise and fall of a carny con man. Carlisle starts off as a small-time magician in a travelling show. The show's kindhearted mentalist teaches him the art of fortune telling, but Carlisle soon makes a bid for more elaborate cons. He ascends to high society parlors and becomes addicted to the idea of tricking the wealthy. How he ends up selling his act to a skeptical, high-powered industrialist is a study in both psychological savvy and moral deterioration. Cons always rely as much on intuition as on sleight-of-hand, so it's no surprise that Carlisle's downfall comes from his own lack of self-understanding. After manipulating so many people for so long, he ends up as the stooge for the one person who could outthink him: his therapist lover. Rodriguez, who spent seven years on this adaptation, makes no such miscalculation. His extreme angles and high-contrast imagery help him remain faithful to the story's cynicism, while his deft handling of carny jargon give readers a inside look at everything from how cons are played to the origins of the word "geek." The alley of Stanton Carlisle's nightmare might be his own arid soul, but it's revealed through the pitiless precision of Rodriguez's art.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

From Booklist
Rodriguez, one of the original alternative comics creators, is best known for tales of his youthful 'hood in urban Latino California. Sex and money count in many of those stories, as they do in Gresham's archetypal roman noir Nightmare Alley (1946), the up-the-long-ladder-and-down-the-short-rope tale of a con man who starts and ends in a traveling carnival. In between he climbs from clairvoyant's helper to spiritualist preacher who has hooked a multimillionaire guilty about the long-gone girlfriend who died from the abortion he bought her. He almost makes the big killing, but he, who meanwhile has betrayed two women, the first after offing her husband (and getting away with it), is flimflammed himself by the curvaceous (natch) shrink he sought out to assuage his guilt. Rodriguez is pretty reverent toward Gresham's almost ludicrously downbeat scenario heavy with pop Freudianism, which means he includes so much of Gresham's prose that he just must give the novelist coauthor credit. Despite too much text and Rodriguez's square drawing style, the lurid yarn still grabs and holds. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 275 pages
• Publisher: Carroll & Graf Publishers (June 1986)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0881842222
• ISBN-13: 978-0881842227
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 4.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #592,439 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing adaptation of a fine novel, May 11, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Nightmare Alley (Paperback)

As a fan of the original novel and the film, I was very much looking forward to this graphic novel (or comic book) version. Unfortunately, this misses the mark. Rodriguez's style, which is great for "underground" comix, doesn't feel right for this material: everything looks sleazy, which is fine for the Carnival stuff, but the overall look needs a veneer of class as the main character's odyssey advances. The biggest problem is that there is not enough visual storytelling here. Some of the scams that are clear in the novel are completely incomprehensible here; if you've never read the novel you won't understand some of them (I had to go back to the novel myself to refresh my memory). The page layouts are basically all the same -- 4 equal size panels per page -- so there's no use of the medium to create interesting layouts and compositions to enhance the story. Small panel closeups and smaller multiple panels to break up incredibly long speeches would have helped tremendously. Everything is line drawings -- no use of wash and few attempts to create interesting lighting. The novel is considered "noir," and it would have benefited from a Frank Miller or Alex Maleev type of approach. If you've never read the novel, pick up the excellent collection "American Noir: Crime Novels of the 30's and 40's" and read it in its original form. This adaptation just doesn't work.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars [e-mail], April 12, 1999

By A Customer

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.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Grotesque, Repulsive, and Fascinating, June 6, 2002

By	Gary F. Taylor "GFT" (Biloxi, MS USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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.