Nightmare Alley
New York: Rinehart, 1946. First Edition. 8vo, pp. 275. Endpapers foxed, one small and faint smudge, else fine in a very good dust jacket with a chip to the head of the spine, an old tape repair to a spine fold split, and light rubbing to the extremities. Item #1379
An acclaimed model for postwar noir, set at the lowest level of carnival life and populated by hustlers, schemers, and con artists whose crimes, treacheries, and betrayals drive a plot that spirals downward with the inevitability of a Greek tragedy and considerably less dignity. Adapted for film twice, in 1947 and again by Guillermo del Toro in 2021, neither version cheery. Gresham understood that the carnival was the perfect American metaphor; a world built entirely on the exploitation of the credulous by the cynical, in which everyone is simultaneously predator and mark. You should read this because it is one of the darkest novels ever written about ambition, and it earns every bit of its hopelessness.
Price: $1,000.00