The whole reason behind why I requested an ARC was because the movie is being directed by my favourite director, Guillermo del Toro.
And if del Toro is onboard, it’s got to be delightfully disturbing and something I'll love.

Stanton Carlisle is hired as a carnie when he becomes fascinated by the geek. Stan an intelligent, handsome & ambitious man, wonders what has to happen in one’s life to become such a disgusting and pathetic person. Vowing this will not be how his story ends.
Learning quickly from the other acts, Stan teams up with the beautiful, young, but extremely naive, Molly, as they leave the circus life behind them and, with their new act, spiritualism they pray on the weak and wealthy.
Stanton is nothing more than a con artist, but will his desire for money and power lead to his demise or success?

This took me a little to get into. The writing style is very different and also the ARC ebook format made it so sentences and words were broken up, but once I got used to it, it flowed a lot easier.
Not only do you get a depressing and vulgar look into human nature, but the mind of the author himself.
I was struck with overwhelming sadness at his depraved, cynical, but real view of depression-era society. With each page, the author's battles and demons are being fleshed out before our very eyes.
Gresham might not have been a “traditional” writer, but I felt a better connection to him knowing he had struggles and that darkness dwelled inside him as it does with so many people today.

I would agree that this is an American noir classic but warn future readers that this was written at a different time. And where I don’t condone racist terminology, you will find it briefly in this book along with sexism, abuse, and many, many twisted scenes.

I know a lot don’t like movie tie-in covers, but this is very clever. The handsome Bradley Cooper, who plays Stanton, obviously draws people's attention but I love the hidden details that allude to what kind of book this is.
Also, this cover isn’t as disturbing as others I’ve seen, but those are a better reflection on what horrors await the reader.

My only reason for 4 stars is the slow start/broken format and the racist words.

Thank you so much, NetGalley & Bloomsbury Publishing Plc for an ARC ebook in return for an honest review.

(My review for Instagram will be posted shortly once I have completed my picture for the post)

I was sure this book was going to be right up my street and I am so disappointed that I did not finish it.

I'm not sure if it was because it was an ARC that still needed some editing but I found the story jumped around often and I would have to reread bits to see if I had missed something. I found it confusing. Hopefully when it is on screen it will be easier to follow.

Thank you to #NetGalley for a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

An American noir classic, the first few chapters of Nightmare Alley had me gripped as it opens with an intriguing insider’s glimpse into the shadowy world of the travelling circuses and carnivals of 1940s America and the tricksters that often lurk in them – from the hustlers, fake psychics, to the femmes fatales.

But as the book goes on to explore the lowest depths of showbiz, the writing becomes very dense and the themes very heavy, which doesn’t make for an easy read. It reminded me of American Psycho in that the characters are very tragic with many self-destructive traits. And while you can see why it’s considered a classic due to its themes of the post-war American dream, there’s no getting around it feeling like a very heavy read.

Author Gresham was working as an editor of a true-crime magazine while writing this book, and it has that same sense of bleakness to it, based on the experiences of a former carnival worker whom he got to know during the war. There’s certainly a lot to enjoy about it, but I felt the weight of the low mood too often to be able to say that I had fun reading it.

I do think that it’s going to be a brilliant film, though, so I have to applaud Gresham for his fantastic story. Sometimes it’s just easier to watch depressing situations than to read about them, and it feels like the perfect film for Guillermo del Toro to add a touch of fantastical light to the harrowing darkness of it all.

Nightmare Alley may not be an easy book to read, but it’s a very clever and original creation with a lot to be impressed by. I can’t wait to see the film, which is set to star Bradley Cooper, Cate Blanchett, Toni Collette, Willem Dafoe, Richard Jenkins, and Rooney Mara, and released on 21st January.

This is a very engrossing story about the world of travelling circuses/carnivals in 1940s America. It is dark and a little surreal at times and extremely gripping. I can totally see why it is being made in to a movie. Recommended.

Nightmare Alley
Meet Stanton, or Stan, Carlisle. He ran away from an abusive home and joined the carny for a life of geeks, kooch dancers, fortune tellers and freaks. He already had some talent in magic and when he marries Zeena, the lady of the cards, he soon learns all the tricks of the trade. Stan wants to go onto bigger things and larger prey. With Molly, the soon to be ex kooch dancer with him, they set off in search of the ‘big one’, the one that will set them up for life.
But Stan’s a troubled, restless and manipulative man. However, he soon finds his calling and changes his name and occupation to Rev. Stanley Carstairs and becomes a Spiritualist minister. Or as he puts it, he’s gone into the the ‘spook racket’. He uses all the tricks of the trade to reel in his clients; people desperate to have some contact, however vague, with their departed loved ones. There’s rich pickings to be made as he divests one of his clients of her house for his church. You can sense how manipulative he is by the way that he pursues her. It’s almost as though he’s stalking her with his fake phenomena. Stan is a man haunted by his childhood and also a recurrent dream of being in a dark alley which echoes the book’s title. Into his already chaotic life comes the glamorous psychologist, Dr Lilith Ritter, and she puts him onto an industrial magnate who could be the big one that he’s been waiting for. The magnate has a secret that he’s told Dr Ritter about and she knew Stan’s ears would prick up. Everything’s going to finally work out for Stan. Or is it?
Along the way he uses everyone he meets: Molly the ex kooch dancer, Zeena and her husband Pete until he finally meets someone who uses him. After that, his path takes a downward turn and turns full circle as he becomes what he most feared.
This is a book written in the 1940’s and it really shows with some of the slang. It took a while for me to get into it because of that and the way in which it’s written. However, I was drawn in by Stan as he was such a ruthless, ambitious and unlikeable character but also a very strong one. Life in the carny was well portrayed with the retinue of freaks, geeks et al as they travel from town to town entertaining their customers during the Great Depression.
Alcohol features heavily in the book and it belongs in the hard-boiled category of fiction. Nightmare Alley is now considered to be a cult classic. There was a movie version starring Tyrone Power and a new one that has just been released starring Bradley Cooper. The book also has a very strong element of the occult with a Tarot deck used as chapter headings with an explanation of the card and how it references the chapter that follows it. In a way, Stan’s life follows the path of the Tarot in its circle of life.
There is a twist at one point and it made me wonder how much of Stan’s life is really as he sees it or has everything I’ve read been unreliable? Is he really a sharp, cruel conman or a victim of circumstance? Like the carny show, nothing is ever quite what it seems.
My thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for an ARC.

Nightmare Alley by William Lindsay Gresham is a tale of over-ambition and its tragic consequences; atmospheric, ironic and wonderfully written.

Stan Carlisle is a young ambitious carnival worker who seeks to make his fortune by using any and all available options to him. He is drawn to the mysterious Madam Zeena who tells people's fortunes, then tries to emulate her act. Stan partners with the beautiful Molly but nothing seems to satisfy his desires.

How far will Stan get in his quest to become rich and how many lives will he destroy along the way?

This was just too depressing by half. Thought it was going to be about the carnival and the touring lifestyle etc which is was, but the alcoholism was just too much and too overpowering so this became the story more than anything else. Turns out the author wrote about his experiences and blended them into this novel. That made it even more depressing for me and I didn't manage to finish it.

I was hooked by the description and was desperate to read to this book.

I have given it three attempts and I’m really disappointed in myself for not finishing the book. This is the first Netgalley ARC that I have not finished.

I found the writing style very dense and found myself continually re-reading sections and not enjoying the experience.

I really wanted to love this book as the description completely sold the book to me. Despite not finishing the book, I will most definitely look out and see the upcoming film.

Huge thanks to Netgalley and to the publishers for making this book available to me.

Although this book wasn't my kind of genre, I found it to be alright although nothing special. It was a nice concept and was readable but didn't blow me away

4-5 stars.

This is the story of the rise and fall of Stanton Carlisle whose life goes almost full circle. His tale starts as a geek in a carny (carnival) freak show to becoming a mentalist at the same fairground and then on to his rise as a spiritualist Reverend and some ‘great’ cons. His fall from grace is certainly dramatic and takes him back to his humble beginnings. His story is further highlighted by the interspersing of Romany tarot cards and takes us from card one The Fool right through to 22 The Hangman and I love the inclusion of those as they are so apt and pertinent.

I didn’t expect to love this book as much as I do but before you know it you find yourself as an incredulous observer of Stan and the other great characters. I love the depiction of the colourful carnival acts, the writing is so vivid and engaging it’s as if you are present at the shows. There’s everything on display here with all its trickery, fakery, the cons, the misdirections with the wool pulling and convincing via unseen codes and signals. The characterisation is fantastic, Stan starts as an enigma but we see his steel, intelligence and manipulative tendencies and as time marches on we understand his background and heavy baggage. Although this is a dark tale there is so much humour present especially in the dialogue and what we end up with it’s a great blend of fear, intrigue, betrayal, danger, violence and fun albeit often dry or jet black. I marvel at the long cons and smile wryly at the con to outsmart the master con artist. It’s very of its time in the representation of society, people in their place and the divisions of segregation, it’s also present in some dialogue which may seem cheesy to us today but it’s certainly typical of the era.

Overall, yes this is certainly “The Dark Alley’ which is seen in the shades of light and the bleakness of dark fear but I find this a fascinating and intense clever mixture. I can’t wait to see the soon to be released movie version directed by Guillermo del Toro as it reads like a movie and thus is tailor-made!

With thanks to NetGalley and especially to Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, Raven for the much appreciated arc in return for an honest review.

This novel was first published in 1946 and has been variously described as American Noir or American Gothic. However it doesn’t sit comfortably into the, admittedly loose, definitions of these two categories. It is undoubtedly a seminal classic and it can be seen in the roots of novels such as “Something Wicked This Way Comes” by Ray Bradbury (1962) or “ Revival” by Stephen King (2014) among many others. It is being republished now because a new film version is due for release in January 2022. Two and a half hours in a film is not the same as 275 pages of text so the former cannot totally encompass the latter. I’ve watched the trailer and it does look like it devotes more time to the second ‘half’ of the book, although all the main points seem to have been addressed.
Because it is such an old but well known book, the concept of spoilers doesn’t strictly apply but I will try to sketch the plot without revealing much detail. Stanton (Stan) Carlisle is a young man who has escaped from his oppressive family, ruled by his sometime preacher father and joined the Carney, Travelling carnivals come freak shows, think Barnham but more down market, were a feature of the early and middle years of the 20th century in the USA hinterland; driving through the night, setting up in a field in some modest sized town, exhibiting strange and exotic people and rooking the rubes. Initially he appears to have no obvious talent but, after being seduced by the fortune-teller and accidentally killing her magician husband, he learns the tricks of both their trades. When a local Sheriff tries to close the Carney down and arrest some of the members, Stan discovers and demonstrates that he has far surpassed his mentors and has become a true mentalist – basically a conman who can cold read people but who performs best if he has clandestine information on the subject. Hooking up with Molly, the Electric Girl, he sets out to become part of the ‘legitimate’ theatrical world, billed as The Great Stanton with Molly as his assistant. He appears to have hit the big time when he meets and joins up with Lilith, a professional psychologist who has files on some of the most rich and famous people in New York. Surely this is an opportunity to become the greatest mentalist there ever was. Inevitably it all goes horribly wrong.
The writing is very strong, even to a modern audience, but appears to totally capture the smells, the sights, the sounds of the carney and shows tremendous insight into the people and their motivations on both sides of the stage. Much of the story centres around excessive drinking, if not alcoholism, and this is related to Gresham’s own life, throughout which he appears to have been fighting a losing battle with drink and suicidal thoughts. He finally killed himself on 16th September 1962 which, by coincidence, is when “Something Wicked This Way Comes” was first published!

I found this book really hard going, it felt quite plodding at times and I struggled with the writing style. I can imagine it may come to life more on the screen and I'll look out for, but the book wasn't for me.
Thank you to netgalley and Bloomsbury for an advance copy of this book

What a great book! It surprised me that this book was written in 1946 as it doesn't feel like it. Sure, it's a noir about life in the travelling entertainment business - carnivals, side-shows, Vaudeville and so on but it doesn't feel dated, just perfect for the period. The characters and the scams are just wonderful. I'm looking forward to seeing the film in 2022.

This is a gloriously lurid, bleak nightmare of a book set in 20's and 30's America starring Stan Carlisle, a worker in the Ten-and-One Carnival, which features a variety of acts, freaks and a geek. He's eager to please and willing to do whatever it takes to learn the tricks of the trade. In fact, there's no depths Stan won't sink to in order to realise his own dark version of the American Dream.

As per usual, I'm writing about the novel without trying to give away anything of the plot, just the basics. This is a hardboiled noir classic, with a rich seam of dark humour, delivered with a burning cigarette hanging out the corner of its mouth and  nursing a glass of brown liquid. 

Early in the book there's a fantastic sweeping scene that takes us around each of the characters in the 'carny' in the middle of their acts. It's just wonderfully written and I knew from then I was going to enjoy this book. Just beautifully detailed, whip smart and darkly funny.

Stan is a fantastic character, full of devilish ambition and willing to sacrifice whoever and whatever to achieve his dream of untold wealth. He's always on the lookout for that one big scam that will see him retiring to Florida. 

'Nothing matters in this goddam lunatic asylum of a world but dough'

He understands the basest motives of humans and what drives them. He's a ruthless manipulator of those around him, especially those who fall for him and his black heart. 

‘The rest of them drink something else: they drink promises. They drink hope. And I've got it to hand them.’

There's a wonderful supporting cast here - from Molly, the naive but eager electric girl, Zeena the formidable fortune teller, to Joe Plasky, the half man acrobat who you wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of.

There are a couple of wonderful scenes depicting Stan's childhood, which are perfect in going some way to explaining some of his characters motivations and explaining why he views people the way he does. His sense of behaviour and reward is somewhat skewed, shall we say.

'Find out what people are afraid of and sell it back to them.'

I loved the writing in this - incredibly lean, a character or situation summed up with a single line. There isn’t a word wasted. It put me in mind of Raymond Chandler, and I don’t think there’s much higher praise than that. It’s the bare essentials of writing, pared down to the absolute basics and it’s an absolute dream to read. The plot fizzes along, pulling the rug from under your feet just when you think you know where it’s going.

This is dark, nightmarish hard boiled noir and I loved it. At time it’s sleazy and lurid and there’s a price to be paid, as usual, and sometimes you get what you deserve. It’s about greed, addiction and mental illness and I got completely pulled into the story and couldn’t help but be fascinated by the complicated character of Stan. I just found out that Del Toro is making a movie based on the book, and the cast sounds perfect - I can just see Rooney Mara, Cate Blanchett, Toni Colette, Williem Defoe and Bradley Cooper in their respective roles. I hope the director keeps to the dark spirit of the book. Maybe there's a role for Tom Waits as well; if not, he'd be perfect for the audiobook.

When you read a book written in the 40s you have to adapt to a different style of writing and a different way of thinking.
This is a typical example of a noir/hard boiled written in the golden age and there all the pros/cons of those books.
I loved it because it's an excellent book, dark and with a main character who is not likeable.
The descriptions of the Depression era are vivid, the characters are fleshed out and quite memorable.
There's plenty to love in this novel even if plot seems a bit too slow at times.
It was the first I read by this author and won't surely be the last as I loved it.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

The carnival world of post Depression America is unambiguous; it’s a peep show filled with the bizarre and unusual and peopled by those happy to exploit the gullible. It’s a singular and hard graft to get along and Gresham’s novel explores this often troubling world with panache. I don’t think he has the literary genius of Steinbeck but the way he depicts the hustlers, cons and the life of the carry is suitably dark and stark.

On the face of it, the carnival life is all go, but just below the surface we soon realise how difficult it is for people like Stanton. He wants better from life and this is a story about his search and troubles. I suspect it’s the type of book which readers will either like or loathe. It was written nearly 80 years ago and times have changed, but this is a very relevant modern morality tale. I can’t say I enjoyed all of it; it’s dark and Stanton isn’t a hero to root for, but it certainly kept my attention and it’s a fascinating insight into a lost and very different world. It’s well worth a visit if you enjoy a peek at the weird and dark.

My thanks to the publisher for a review copy via Netgalley.

This is a 2.5 rounded up to a 3. I think this just wasn’t my type of novel. The plot felt very slow and the action in the novel was often misogynistic. This is seen as a classic but I think it just didn’t align with my personal taste. This follows Stanton a boy raised in the carnival scene, who then gets into clairvoyance as a way to make his big break. As his cons and scams get larger he gets into deeper darker waters that impact his own identity and damage his relationships with others around him. This is a novel that follows Stanton’s own self destruction due to lust and greed. It wasn’t my cup of tea. I have seen that there will be a movie adaptation of this coming out in December, so if you are interested in the plot I would get reading the book now!

Thanks to Bloomsbury and Netgalley for a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

The beginning of the book was wonderful. Wondrous and exciting - I absolutely love circus settings so it really was right up my alley.

After 40% is where we’re truly away from the circus and I couldn’t get along with this new setting. Couple that with already struggling with the writing style and I just wasn’t enjoying it anymore.

For me this book is too long. I will happily see the adaptation but it’s just too hard of a read and it won’t be missed.

The book is a real insight into carnival and vaudeville life, and I could see it straight away why Guillermo Del Toro is making this into a film. Gresham pulls you into this magical but dark world straight away, and through the dialogues you get a real essence of each character. Each chapter is a tarot card as if the story was unravelling through fortune telling as well. I really enjoyed it and looking forward to the film.

Stanton Carlisle, story is a fascinating insight into life as a carney in the 40s. He writes extremely well written and very interesting to read. highly recommend it before the movie comes out.