Nightmare Alley begins with an extraordinary description of a carnival-show geek—alcoholic and abject and the object of the voyeuristic crowd’s gleeful disgust and derision—going 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. There’s 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 he’s going places. Onstage he plays the mentalist with a cute assistant (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 Stan’s for the taking. At least for now.

Soon to be a major motion picture starring Bradley Cooper, Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara, Willem Dafoe, and Toni Colette, and directed by Academy Award–winning director Guillermo del Toro.

Download the Reading Group Guide for Nightmare Alley.

Guillermo del Toro's 2021 film, starring Bradley Cooper, Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara, Willem Dafoe, and Toni Colette, is based on William Lindsay Gresham's novel.

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Nightmare Alley