Nightmare Alley by William Lindsay Gresham Review

Nightmare Alley is about the rise and fall of conman Stanton Carlisle, beginning in his early carny days performing sleight of hand card tricks, to becoming a mentalist (“psychic”), to moving into spiritualism and claiming to speak to the dead - of the wealthy, of course - until he eventually bites off more than he can chew.

It’s a 1940s noir novel but I wouldn’t say it was a “classic” or even remotely good. William Lindsay Gresham’s pseudo-morality tale is obvious throughout with an uninteresting message (being dishonest is baaaad) and one hammy scene after another.

It’s not exciting in the least to watch Stan get more proficient at conning crowds - why would it be? It would’ve been better if Gresham spared us the plodding rise and just showed us him at his peak so he could tell the story of his downfall, given that’s what the book’s really about. He’s also an obnoxious character, driven by greed and ego, humoured by his dull wife Molly, whom he’s horrible to (Gresham himself was a wife beater and drunk, like Stan - Gresham’s first wife eventually divorced him, moved to England with their two children and married CS Lewis).

Each chapter has something loosely to do with a Tarot card (a reference to Stan’s profession), which turns out to be contrived as some of the chapters, particularly the short latter ones, have little to do with the larger story and seem to just be about the card.

The title itself seems to reference the tunnel, aka “the light at the end of the tunnel” that people claim to see when near death, which I guess ties into the spiritualism aspect, and might be a metaphor for Stan’s torrid life - or not, as I may be completely off on that interpretation. It’s likely as superficial as the Tarot cards gimmick.

There’s also an attempt at a twist ending in the final act that’s very poorly handled because Gresham wasn’t much of a writer. The effect is just confusing and pointless, given what happens after (ie. not much).

Boring and underwhelming story, unmemorable and tedious characters, and a whole lotta nothin’ - Nightmare Alley is the literary equivalent of a third-rate carnival act.