Blind Alley: the Sad and 'Geeky' Life of William Lindsay Gresham

NOTES ON A STRANGE WORLD MASSIMO POLIDORO Blind Alley: The Sad and 'Geeky' Life of William Lindsay Gresham "Let me tell you something, kid. cestor of modern showmen like John magician could pay quite some reward In the carny you don't ask noth- Edward and Sylvia Browne. Carlisle just to learn the ingenious trick used by ing. And you'll get told no lies." learns from her all there is to know about Carlisle to move the arms of a precision cold reading and is awestruck by how balance placed under a glass case. (Don't W.L. Gresham, well the technique works with people: worry, I won't spoil the surprise. You'll Nightmare Alley "The world is mine! I've got 'em across find it in the book.) Gresham organizes the barrel and I can shake them loose each chapter along the twenty-two ne of the best (if not the best) from whatever I want. The geek has his minor arcana of the Tarot, a device used "skeptical" novels whisky. The rest of them by later authors such as Robert Anton Oever written has drink something else: they Wilson and Umberto Eco. to be William Lindsay NIGHTMARE drink promises. They drink When Nightmare Alley came out in Gresham's Nightmare Alley. ALLEY hope. And I've got it to 1946 it was an instant success. The fol- The story is classic noir, hand them." lowing year Edmund Goulding directed depicting the rise and fall And so he leaves the a film version of it, starring Tyrone of Stanton Carlisle, an all- carny in order to reach the Power in the role of the suave Carlisle. around faker who gets his big time, but his dreams are Though it turned out to be quite a WIUIAM start in a carny ten-in-one LIHOSM BKSIUU shattered by a careless per- creepy B-movie, the film is not up to the show. It opens with a formance in front of his first quality of the book. revolting description of a high-level audience and he However, though Nightmare Alley is a "geek," a word that Gre- sets out to get revenge. He book often mentioned in skeptical liter- sham claimed he had invented, referring turns himself into a phony pseudo- ature, it is unfortunately seldom read— to the lowest of the low: an alcoholic or religious spiritualist and starts preying on for years it was out of print and only drug addict who was out of his head all the rich and gullible matrons of society. recently reprinted in an omnibus edi- the time. He could be prodded, cajoled, His fatal step arrives when he tion (Polito 1997). and led into working for more drinks or attempts a big swindle in collaboration Because Gresham was also an ama- drugs. His job? To sit and crawl in his with a female psychiatrist who is even teur magician, student of the occult, and own excrement, as the Wild Man of more duplicitous. On the lam from the the author of other fine books (includ- Borneo, and occasionally bite the heads law, our anti-hero retreats into the bot- ing one of the earliest Houdini biogra- off chickens and snakes. tle and ultimately returns to the carny, phies and a mesmerizing book on the In the carnival, Stanton is the assistant where he is forced to take a job as a geek. history and workings of the sideshow), I to (and then the lover of) a phony It's a dark, sordid story, but beauti- was quite interested in learning more medium. Madam Zeena, a perfect an- fully told by Gresham's captivating sto- about him and his dealings with magic rytelling. And, apart from a great read, and the paranormal. Massimo Polidoro is an investigator of the this book also presents a magnificent paranormal, author, lecturer, and co- expose of fake psychics and mediums, From Depression to War founder and head of CICAP, the Italian with rarely found details on how the Gresham, allegedly the descendant of a skeptics group. cold reading business really works. A family that setded in Maryland in 1641, 1 4 July/August 2003 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER was born August 20, 1909, in From Communism to Religions ideas of writer C. S. Lewis, found religion Baltimore, Maryland. He moved with After returning to the U.S. in January and joined the Presbyterian Church. his family to Fall River, Massachusetts, 1939, his marriage ended in divorce. He They announced their joint conversion and when his father needed to pursue a took to drink, spent time in a tuberculo- in articles published in a 1951 anthology. factory job they all moved to New York sis ward and, out of despair, attempted to These Found the Way: Thirteen Converts to City. He graduated from Erasmus Hall hang himself in a closet, but the hook Protestant Christianity. High School, in Brooklyn, the year came loose and he fell to the ground. To As money started to dry up, how- Houdini died, 1926. Unsure of his career path, he worked at odd jobs and as a folk singer in Greenwich Village cafes. Those were Gresham finally met success when Nightmare Alley the years of the Great Depression and as America suffered its economic woes, was published in 1946 and Hollywood Franklin Delano Roosevelt extolled the later turned it into a movie. virtues of hard work. It was in his acceptance of the Democratic nomina- tion for president in July 1932 that FDR began his conservation move- straighten up his life he went to a psycho- ever, tensions developed between the ment, proposing putting city men to analyst and worked as a salesman, magi- couple, and Gresham started to drink work restoring the country to its "for- cian, and editor for True Crime magazine. heavily. The alcohol occasionally mer beauty." The Civilian Conservation In 1942 he married again, to writer and turned him violent, and when it was Corps, or CCC, a massive salvage oper- poet Helen Joy Davidman, and the cou- apparent that he had a relationship ation destined to become the most pop- ple had two sons, David and Douglas. with another woman the threat of ular experiment of the New divorce materialized again. Deal, was born. Gresham Religion could not help promptly joined the CCC. Gresham anymore, so he His time there lasted a few turned to Zen, the Tarot, years and, when he met a Yoga, I Ching and Dianetics, wealthy woman and married but nothing seemed to work. her, he left the CCC. After a While Joy was away on a brief stint as a reviewer for the vacation in England, on the New York Evening Post, he advice of her doctor, Gresham worked as an advertising copy started a relationship with Joy's writer and in his spare time first cousin, Renee Rodriguez. contributed stories to pulp When Joy returned, divorce magazines. became the only possible solu- In November 1936, like tion. They were forced to sell many idealistic young men in William Lindsay Gresham the house to pay off the those days, he joined the Internal Revenue Service, and Communist Party, taking as a name He finally met success when Joy moved to England with the boys. In William Rafferry. The following year, Nightmare Alley was published in 1946 1956 she married C.S. Lewis; their story after a close friend died at Brunete, he and Hollywood later turned it into a was told in the 1993 film Shadowlands, left for Spain where he fought and movie. With the money, the Gresham with Anthony Hopkins and Debra served for fifteen months as a medic family moved out of Queens and up to Winger. Joy died on July 14, 1960. with the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, on a large estate in Staatsburg, north of Gresham, meanwhile, had married the side of the Republicans in the New York City. Renee in 1954, moved to Florida, and Spanish Civil War. It was during his His second novel. Limbo Tower, a joined Alcoholics Anonymous. He had days at the camp hospital that he met a story that takes place on the ninth floor also published his first nonfiction book. medic who liked to reminisce about his of a hospital about a group of people Monster Midway: An Uninhibited Look times in a carnival. His name was brought together during their stay in the at the Glittering World of the Carny, a fas- Joseph Daniel "Doc" Halliday, a for- hospital, was published in 1949 but did cinating treatise on carnivals, and mer seaman and male nurse. It was not match the success of the first book. seemed to find some peace of mind. He from him that Gresham learned all Meanwhile, after leaving both Com- was living in New Rochelle, New York, about the carny culture, habits, mental- munism and psychoanalysis behind, when he started work on his biography ity, and language. Gresham and Joy, deeply influenced by on Houdini. SKEPTICAL INQUIRER July/Augus! 2003 15 Magicians Through Walls this book is dedicated with the sincere A Red Light Levitation The book tided Houdini: The Man Who admiration of the author" and, on die last After the world of sideshow and magic, Walked Through Walls is today often crit- page of die book, there is still one more it was quite logical that Gresham's atten- icized by Houdini experts for its inaccu- reference to "the invaluable correspon- tion turned toward Spiritualism. He was racies and faults. It is certainly not com- dence on die subject of Houdini and fascinated by characters such as medi- parable to Silverman's 1996 almost per- escapery in general with The Amazing ums Daniel Dunglas Home and fect Houdini!!! The Career ofEhrich Weiss.

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