Book Review: Nightmare Alley Graphic Novel by Spain Rodriguez

What does it take to get a movie made?

A friend was asking me this after we had watched Guillermo del Toro’s adaptation of Nightmare Alley. My friend is a Charles William specialist, so she was curious about the idea of using move adaptations to get his work out there.

I pointed out that usually movies cost millions (60 million in Nightmare Alley‘s case), so timing is everything. There have been two adaptations of Nightmare Alley, both made by powerful people (actor Tyrone power, director del Toro) making the right deals at the right time when they had the most influence to get a passion project made. Neither movie made money at the box office.

So, I suggested, it’s usually better not to hope for the movie version. Hold out for something like the audiobook or the graphic novel. Those are much easier to make.

Two weeks after this conversation, I discover that even making a graphic novel of Nightmare Alley is not easy.

The graphic novel version of Nightmare Alley was published in 2003, written and illustrated by Spain Rodriguez. Gary Groth explains in his introduction that the plan to adapt Nightmare Alley began in 1991 (iv, non-paginated). At that time, Art Spiegelman (author of the Pulitzer-winning Maus), was working with independent publisher Bob Callahan to release adaptations of various various crime novels, to be distributed by Avon Books (ibid). Avon published two graphic novels (City of Glass, Perdita Durango) appeared, and Tom DeHaven began writing a script for Nightmare Alley. Sadly, “a personal tragedy cut his involvement abruptly short” (vi, non-paginated).

Underground comics artist Spain Rodriguez then became involved, deciding he would adapt Nightmare Alley from his own script. New problems arose when Avon Books canceled the project in 1996. It eventually found a home at Fantagraphics Books.

“As soon as Fantagraphics Books, who published two of Spain’s collections in the ’90s (Trashman and My True Story, as well as his short stories in the anthology Blab!) picked the book up in 2001, Spain set down and finished the book, the longest single work of his career. All told, Spain spent seven years working on it, on and off. All told, more artists have worked on adapting Nightmare Alley, adapting it into more media, than just about any work of fiction.”

Gary Groth, introduction to Nightmare Alley (vi, non-paginated)

The last statement is debatable, although Groth has a point. Yes, there are probably a string of adaptations of classics like The Three Musketeers and Moby Dick, but most of those get made fairly easily. Every version of Nightmare Alley (the movies, the 2010 musical, the graphic novel) has taken a great deal of work, and gone through multiple obstacles. Gresham has not been an easy writer to adapt. He hasn’t even been easy writer to study: as of this writing, two planned Gresham biographies (one by Nick Tosches, another by Perry Bramlett) never made it to print because the authors passed away.

So. We are about to pass 20 years since this hard-won graphic novel adaptation by Rodriguez appeared. Was it worth it?

As a whole, I would say yes. It’s a very impressive piece of work. It follows the book’s plot closely. Stanton Carlisle is a carnival worker, with some surprising coworkers. Strongman Bruno, who is too shy to admit he has a crush on Molly, a girl who does an electricity act. Madame Zeena, the married (but lonely) psychic whose husband invented the perfect mentalist act. Zeena’s husband Pete, once a great performer but now a shadow of his former self who spends all his time drinking. Stan gets the routine, and takes Molly with him to strike it rich on the vaudeville circuit. They proceed from vaudeville to posh nightclubs, before Stan rebrands himself as a spiritualist minister. When he meets psychiatrist Dr. Lillith Ritter, she reveals a way they can complete the con job of a lifetime.

Some may wonder the point of reading the graphic novel if it follows the book closely. There are moments where this presents a problem. One of the more interesting passages in the book is Bruno thinking about how much he likes Molly, but is too shy to do anything. This could be interesting, but Bruno’s love never develops into an engaging plot complication. He never threatens Stan, never makes any overtures to Molly. Both movies handle this problem by making Bruno into an older man who seems to have a foster-father attachment to Molly. Both movies make him a foil to Stan, the jealous father who doesn’t trust the young punk. It’s a case where deviating from the book helps, by cultivating something more interesting than the original story.

On the other hand, because Rodriguez keeps the novel’s three part structure intact, he maintains a fascinating section that appears in neither film. Both films show Stan as a nightclub entertainer being approached by people who think his powers are genuine, leading right into the con scenes. They skip the years he spent as a Spiritualist minister (including a house rigged to show fake poltergeist activity). Both films make the jump work, and it’s easy to see why they omit the second act: it is about the same size as the third act, and adds literal years to the narrative. It would require something like an HBO miniseries to tell all three acts.

A graphic novel has less space restrictions, so Rodriguez takes more time. Minor incidents are cut here and there, but he provides the full epic story of Stan’s rise to greater crimes. In fact, epic is the right word: Gresham’s story may not have the frothy descriptions or romanticism of an F. Scott Fitzgerald story, but this is not unlike The Great Gatsby. It’s a tale about a man who reinvents himself to get what he wants (in this case, money). He takes the American dream project to places the founders never expected, but we can’t help but we know this is how so many American entrepreneurs made their names: bending the rules, moving fast, not caring who they stepped on along the way.

The largest change Rodriguez makes is perhaps the one thing that’s really a flaw in this book: his emphasis on sexuality. There’s some fairly strong sexual material in the novel, enough that the book was censored for decades. However, other than one or two scenes that describe naked women, most of it isn’t communicated by showing anatomical details. 

Rodriguez doubles down on the sexual imagery. Occasionally, his choices are clever. For example, example, there’s a scene in the novel where Ritter, now having an affair with Stan, sits in her bathrobe while Stan paints her toenails. Rodriguez pictures this as her wearing undergarments with no bathroom, standing on a steptool, pointing at Stan as he kneels. Shocking, much more provocative than the book. But, arguably it works: it gives a much stronger sense of the power play evident in the book.

However, a lot of these sequences feel gratuitous. If the novel mentioned a couple in bed without specifying what they wear, Rodriguez shows them wearing nothing. And the woman’s naked body becomes the most prominent part of the panel.

Curiously, this emphasis on nudity raises a good question about noir fiction. Gresham’s novel has some strong sexual scenes, ones which can’t be removed without breaking the narrative. But like many hardboiled and noir novels, Nightmare Alley features some clever tricks. Even in the 2010 uncensored edition by The New York Review of Books, there are scenes where Gresham goes right up to the borderline, then dances around the scene rather than giving readers too much anatomical information. Anyone familiar with noir novels (or the more heavily censored noir films) will know this curious balance: not being able to show some things meant the writers got clever. They implied or cut scenes short. They played tricks that left readers with just enough information, not enough for anyone to call them obscene. That balancing act became a fundamental, and even attractive part of noir. It made the stories ambiguous, devious and sly.

Curiously then, Rodriguez’s more overt approach to sexuality has a few striking moments, but often feels a little misled. Not sly enough for the genre.

Excesses aside, Spain Rodriguez’s Nightmare Alley is well worth reading if you like 1940s noir. It’s an intelligent piece of work that shows Rodriguez’ talent, and does justice to Gresham’s story. Tragically, it’s also out of print, much like the 1947 movie was for some time.

Sources Cited

Nightmare Alley by Spain Rodriguez. Introduction by Gary Groth. Fantagraphics Books, 2003.