Nightmare Alley (New York Review Books Classics) (English Edition)

Nightmare Alley begins with an extraordinary description of a freak-show geekalcoholic and abject and the object of the voyeuristic crowds gleeful disgust and derisiongoing about his work at a county fair. Young Stan Carlisle is working as a carny, and he wonders how a man could fall so low. Theres no way in hell, he vows, that anything like that will ever happen to him. And since Stan is clever and ambitious and not without a useful streak of ruthlessness, soon enough hes going places. Onstage he plays the mentalist with a cute bimbo (before long his harried wife), then he graduates to full-blown spiritualist, catering to the needs of the rich and gullible in their well-upholstered homes. It looks like the world is Stans for the taking. At least for now.