The "what are you reading?" thread.

[PlumCrazy]

Nightmare Alley by William Lindsay Gresham
As dark as noir gets - brilliant story.

[HorseyBoy]

Nightmare Alley by William Lindsay Gresham
As dark as noir gets - brilliant story.

Yeah, that's a great book. Really good movie, too, with Tyrone Power in the lead role.
Gresham's life was as dark as his books. His wife left him for C.S. Lewis, he drank way more than a man should drink and ended up overdosing on sleeping pills in the same hotel he wrote "Nightmare Alley". This was on his business cards, which were found on his body: "No Address. No Phone. No Business. No Money. Retired." He didn't leave many books behind and I've only ever read one other, a biography of Harry Houdini.
If you like carny stories, give "Geek Love" by Katherine Dunn a try. That's fucking awesome. And if you liked Gresham's style, go for David Goodis. Anything he wrote is worth reading, but "Nightfall", "The Burglar", "The Moon in the Gutter", "The Wounded and the Slain" and "Down There" are good places to start.