Nightmare Alley Audiobook (Unabridged)

" took a while to read "

" This book was such a disappointment because I thought I loved it at first. It was atmospheric and absorbing. The background of the travelling carnival was creepy, with some amazing imagery. The carnies playing poker with Tarot cards! But then the main character graduated to vaudville- with a mentalist act- then became a spiritualist, convincing wealthy people that he talked to the dead. This was still pretty interesting. But the second half of the novel dove deeper into the dark and surreal, too deep for me. I found it abstract, annoyingly choppy, inscrutable. Towards the end of the book I was barely hanging on. Not for me. "

" There's a lot to admire here, if you can get through one or two bad and under-written chapters (one of which, sadly, begins on page 8, like a sort of literary 'KEEP OUT' sign). The prose is good, the dialogue (especially the carny argot) very believable and pacey. The ending is telegraphed, but very neat and not overdone when it arrives. "

" Freaks and hustlers! Geeks and busters! "

" When I took this book out of the library I thought it was a new book. In reality it was a newly released classic from 1946. It was a real classic! A very interesting book about carnies and swindlers. I loved the era. "

" I really just can't help but be glad all this mid century fiction is coming back into print. I liked this book a lot, it's quietly grim and very much a portrait of a underground I am always happy to read about. "

" It's official. I do not like noir. I need characters who, though they make mistakes, at least try to do the right thing. If you enjoy deeply flawed human beings and an inside look at hucksters, you'll enjoy this. "

" Perhaps one of the best peices of late '30s/early '40s pulp I've ever read. It stradles the line so deftly between genre and high art. "

" Excellent book. Some definite flaws in the narrative along the way but a great story and well told. It's fine noir fiction. Highly recommended. "

" this is one of the darkest books i've ever read. nightmare alley? yes. that's accurate. "

" Also reprinted in Crime Novels: American Noir of the 1930's & 40's (Library of America). The great American novel. No shit. "

" In The Sweet Smell of Success, J.J. Hunsecker says, "You're a cookie full of arsenic." Nightmare Alley is delicious in the same way. A wild, wicked ride. It's not that you don't know where it's headed, but it's a ball getting there. "

" As formulaic as it is (which I have to say I didn't foresee until near the end), this book kicked my ass. Amazing and horrifying. Too bad Gresham wrote so little in the noir vein. "

" Polished this off and then went out to Coney Island to see the real thing. Good carny smut for a summer night. "