Nightmare Alley

Almost anyone can be a publisher if they are wiling to read widely, exercise good taste, and take a few risks. Naxos AudioBooks, which has pioneered great versions of Finnegans Wake, and the works of Jane Austen, is branching out this month with a 10-hour recording of William Lindsay Gresham’s Nightmare Alley. William Lindsay who? I’d never heard of this forgotten Americancorrect crime writer, briefly married to Joy Davidman (who, later, was the doomed wife of C.S. Lewis). In its day, Lindsay’s highly original portrait of the dark side of the American dream, seen through the desperate world of carnival sideshows, was a hit. Read by Adam Sims, it makes for an enthralling listen for a long car journey. Hats off to Naxos for the discovery.

Robert McCrum, Observer

This extraordinary and mesmerising 1946 cult novel was born of the author’s lifelong fascination with the sophisticated tricks behind American carnival and the sideshows of Coney Island. Its clever and ambitious protagonist, Stan Carlisle, learns how to dupe the gullible public, and sets out to make huge bucks from faked spiritualism. He treats others as ruthlessly as he was treated as a child, but is plagued by his own demons which are as destructive as those he conjures. Matched by a spectacular narration.

Rachel Redford, Observer

Gresham’s little-remembered noir masterpiece deserves a whole new generation of readers, and Adam Sim’s dark performance is a marvellous way to reach them. The story begins in a carnival, which provides a narrator’s dream assortment of characters. Though some are unmistakably comic, Gresham’s vision is anything but lighthearted. His protagonist, Stanley Carlisle, is a mind reader cum spiritualist who preys on the lonely and despairing without recognising the blackness at his own centre. Sims is alive to the tragedy of Carlisle but never seeks to soften him. He coldly follows Carlisle on his unmerciful path – right to the devastating but inevitable end.

M.O., AudioFile

Gresham’s little-remembered noir masterpiece deserves a whole new generation of readers, and Adam Sims’s dark performance is a marvellous way to reach them. The story begins in a carnival, which provides a narrator’s dream assortment of characters. Though some are unmistakably comic, Gresham’s vision is anything but lighthearted. His protagonist, Stanley Carlisle, is a mind reader-cum-spiritualist who preys on the lonely and despairing without recognising the blackness at his own centre. Sims is alive to the tragedy of Carlisle but never seeks to soften him. He coldly follows Carlisle on his unmerciful path – right to the devastating but inevitable end.

M.O., AudioFile