Grifters and their marks (the suckers) figure prominently in many noire novels and movies, and William Lindsay Gresham's sordidly fantastic 1946 novel Nightmare Alley features one of the best literary grifters ever: Stanton Carlisle.
Nightmare Alley traces Stan's path from the gritty carny tent to expensive private séances where, as the Reverend Carlisle, he summons spirits for the naive and vulnerable well-to-do. Stan's ascent illustrates all the talents a successful grifter needs to have: an ability to identify the most gullible and eager marks, whether in the carny audience or among the well-heeled dinner-party guests; enough talent for magic to pull off increasingly elaborate illusions and sleights; and a real gift for gab. The last of these talents is the most important of all, serving multiple purposes: to ingratiate the marks while all the time keeping them distracted from the real game at hand; to identify and exploit a personal weakness or trauma, creating an emotional stake in the grift; and to weasel out of jams when a cop or a skeptical mark calls your bluff.
Along Stan's journey, the reader is treated to a fine cast of characters, including the women in Stan's life– grifters and marks alike– and to writing in the best hard-boiled style, punctuated by booze-driven stream of consciousness soliloquies. Extended flashbacks and memories fill in the personal histories of a couple of characters, most notably Stan Carlisle. His Oedipal longing and resentments are fodder for his psychologist, lover, and eventual partner-in-grift Lilith Ritter. You'd think Stan might be a little more savvy than to fall for this femme fatale– but then, maybe there's a mark inside every grifter.
This being noire, it's not a spoiler to reveal that Stan's ascent will inevitably lead to a hard fall. You might say he had it coming; but for the gods or spirits who govern Gresham's universe, justice has got nothing to do with it.
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