How long does it take to read Nightmare Alley?
William Lindsay Gresham
Nightmare Alley by William Lindsay Gresham takes about 5 hours 3 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 5 hours 3 minutes
A weekend read
First published 1946. 275 pages, about 75,625 words.
11 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 8 hours 24 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 5 hours 3 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 3 hours 9 minutes |
The page count is the median across 11 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
Stanton Carlisle, employed as a carny at a travelling circus watches their freak-show geek - an abject alcoholic, the object of the voyeuristic crowd's gleeful disgust and derision - and wonders how a man could fall so low. There's no way in hell, he vows, that anything like that will ever happen to him. Unlike the tragic figure he sees before him, Stan is young, clever and ambitious and quick to learn from the other carnival acts. Initially teaming up with a beautiful but vulnerable woman as part of a double act in which he mesmerises her, Stan soon leaves his circus days behind him, becoming a successful spiritualist who exploits the weak and the wealthy. But even the very best con-men can meet their match...
Subjects: Circus performers, Fiction, Mediums, Swindlers and swindling, Fiction, mystery & detective, general, Fiction, general
