Nightmare Alley

(1953), Houdini (1959), and The Book of Strength (1961). Nightmare Alley brought Gresham fame and fortune, but he lost it all. The second of his three wives, the poet Joy Davidman, left him in 1953 for the British author C. S. Lewis. He killed himself in New York City on September 14, 1962.

NICK TOSCHES is the author of fifteen books of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. His most recent novel, In the Hand of Dante, was published in seventeen languages and selected as a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. He has long been working on a book about William Lindsay Gresham.

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