Nightmare Alley follows the exploits of Stanton Carlisle, a ruthless hustler who learns the tricks of the carny trade and uses them to establish himself as a spiritual guru, preying on the wealthy and the weak. Carlisle’s determined rise to power and inevitable plunge into depravity is an evisceration of the postwar American dream.

Collected in this volume is a sampling of Gresham’s other carnival-themed work: essays offering first-hand observations of life beneath the canvas tops. An essay by Bret Wood, “William Lindsay Gresham: The Disillusionist,” explores the novelist’s fascination with carnivals, magic, and spiritualism; and Gresham’s lifelong crusade to extract the carefully-guarded secrets that lay hidden within.