Carnival Noir

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I recently watched Guillermo del Toro's Nightmare Alley. It is an excellent film. I have loved the original 1947 movie starring Tyrone Power since I was young. But it wasn't until 2002 that I read the novel by William Lindsay Gresham. I remember the year because it was the same year that S.T. Joshi published his book H.L Mencken On Religion. Those were my favorite reads that year. I immediately bought other works by Gresham, including his book Monster Midway which is a nonfiction work on carnivals. I even tracked down some of his more obscure short work in magazines. Much later, Centipede Press published a set of books by Gresham: Nightmare Alley and Grindshow. While I rarely buy books from Centipede Press, due to the price, I had to buy these. All of these books are very pricey now.


Del Toro and others have referred to this genre as 'Carnival Noir'.


I was wondering what work you would put in this sub-genre of fiction? Ligotti's "Gas Station Carnivals" definitely fits. One of my favorite stories in this vein is Michael Chabon's "The God of Dark Laughter." Also, I would love to hear if anyone has had experience with carnivals. Here are a few of mine:

I saw my first carnival when I was on a family vacation on our way to Canada in upstate New York. This was in the early 70s. My dad wanted to 'stretch his legs' before driving the rest of the way, so we stopped to look around. We didn't have time to waste waiting in line for rides, but we did get lured into the sideshow. We paid for admittance and were ushered into a large tent with a fairly sizeable crowd. They had the standard human oddities: The overweight man, the strong man, and an old lady midget. They had her hold a pop can to emphasize how small her hands were. You could pay to have your picture taken with them. To get in the next tent cost more. There they had the more serious 'freaks'. All I remember was a banner with a guy with a hairy face. My dad wouldn't spring for that, so off we went.
But throughout my childhood, we went to carnivals. Maybe Ohio was deemed so boring that they figured people would come out for them. And we did.
For several years in the summer, one would set up in our grocery store parking lot for a week or so. Also, for one weekend a year, we always went to the Italian Day picnic. Some years it was held at an amusement park on Chippewa lake. But usually, it was held at Playland Park which was a glorified carnival. They had the usual carnival gaffes and rides, but also a sideshow. The owner of that show was dressed in a safari outfit complete with a pith helmet. He would do his carnival barker spiel two or three times a day. "Born alive! Created by the hands of God! Born Alive!" He used a microphone and drew people in from the entire park. When the crowd gathered, he put down his microphone and started his sales pitch. We paid a trivial amount and were ushered into a tent that had animal curiosities. Some were taxidermy animals like a goat with a second face growing out of its head. A two-headed snake. A three-legged rooster. And they had jars filled with formaldehyde containing other grotesques. The second tent contained a 'Wild Man' captured in some jungle who was supposedly raised by animals. We had to pay extra to get into that tent. My friends were pissed at me because I talked them into it. I think it was a dollar. We were all skeptical, but I still wanted to see it. The light was rather low. They pulled a tarp off of this rather large cage and we saw him crawling back and forth. The guy in the pith helmet related the story of how he was captured as everyone watched the wild man. He seemed to get more and more animalistic over time. The story reached fever pitch when he said the wild man sometimes reverted back into an animal. That was apparently the cue for the wild man to lunge at the front of the cage which came crashing down. Surprise from the guys, screams from the girls. We were hurriedly ushered out of the tent while they tried to keep him contained. Well worth a dollar.

[bendk]

On William Lindsay Gresham's novel Nightmare Alley by a notable critic who is also an admirer of Ligotti's work:

“While I've known for a long time that Nightmare Alley was an established classic of noir fiction, I was utterly unprepared for its raw, Dostoevskian power....it's more than just a steamy noir classic. As a portrait of the human condition, Nightmare Alley is a creepy, all-too-harrowing masterpiece.” —Michael Dirda, The Washington Post


I just finished this book today. It is a wonderful movie companion volume to del Toro's Nightmare Alley. (There is a nice video on this book, but when I tried to post it, it says it is only able to be viewed on Youtube. The title is: "Nightmare Alley: The Rise and Fall of Stanton Carlisle" Book Flipthrough)

[bendk]

Ellen Datlow put together a volume on 'Carnival Noir'. I have the book but have only read a handful of stories thus far.



Table of Contents

Preface Ellen Datlow
Introduction Katherine Dunn
"Scapegoats" by N. Lee Wood
"The Firebrand" by Priya Sharma
"Work, Hook, Shoot, Rip" by Nick Mamatas
"And the Carnival Leaves Town" by A.C. Wise
"Corpse Rose" by Terry Dowling
"Last of the Fair" by Joel Lane
"A Small Part in the Pantomime" by Glen Hirshberg
"Hibbler’s Minions" by Jeffrey Ford
"Swan Song and Then Some" by Dennis Danvers
"The Lion Cage" by Genevieve Valentine
"The Darkest Part" by Stephen Graham Jones
"The Popping Fields" by Robert Shearman
"Skullpocket" by Nathan Ballingrud
"The Mysteries" by Livia Llewellyn
"Screaming Elk, Mt." by Laird Barron

[Masonwire]

You could have a look at Bradbury's novel Something Wicked This Way Comes in which a young boy is confronted with a sinister carnival coming to his hometown.

I must have read it when I was about 13/14 and I remember enjoying it immensely. I re-read it some thirty odd years later and I then found it had some/more rather sentimental passages than I recalled. Still, certainly worth reading.

[cannibal cop]

Although its roots are much more deeply embedded in the horror field than in noir, Tobe Hooper's 1981 classic The Funhouse captures much of that seedy festive/funereal ambience of a shady, down-on-its-luck traveling carnival with more than its share of bad news hidden behind the bright lights and tattered finery.

But then if this includes straight-up horror stories that make good use of carnivals or similar settings, there's no shortage of great work to consider by the likes of Robert Bloch, Ramsey Campbell, Charles L. Grant, Charles Beaumont, Gahan Wilson, Robert Aickman, Richard Matheson, and others. And of course Bradbury.

[bendk]

Quote Originally Posted by Masonwire

You could have a look at Bradbury's novel Something Wicked This Way Comes in which a young boy is confronted with a sinister carnival coming to his hometown. I must have read it when I was about 13/14 and I remember enjoying it immensely. I re-read it some thirty odd years later and I then found it had some/more rather sentimental passages than I recalled. Still, certainly worth reading.

I agree. Good call. Ray Bradbury may be the king of 'carnival noir'. Bradbury's first short story collection was published in 1947 by Arkham House. The title was Dark Carnival. I read Something Wicked This Way Comes in my 20s. I even have this novel in my Audible.com library.
There have been a few deluxe editions made of it, including one by Centipede Press.
I also like the Disney film. But they should have included the scene of the witch in the hot air balloon chasing the boys. That was a missed opportunity. Jonathan Pryce was a great villain. There were rumors that a remake of this film was in the works at one time.


This is the paperback that I owned. I bought it at Goodwill for fifty cents.

[bendk]

Quote Originally Posted by cannibal cop

Although its roots are much more deeply embedded in the horror field than in noir, Tobe Hooper's 1981 classic The Funhouse captures much of that seedy festive/funereal ambience of a shady, down-on-its-luck traveling carnival with more than its share of bad news hidden behind the bright lights and tattered finery. But then if this includes straight-up horror stories that make good use of carnivals or similar settings, there's no shortage of great work to consider by the likes of Robert Bloch, Ramsey Campbell, Charles L. Grant, Charles Beaumont, Gahan Wilson, Robert Aickman, Richard Matheson, and others. And of course Bradbury.

I have been aware of this film forever, but I have never watched it. I will have to remedy that. There is a blurring of the lines between Horror Noir and Carnival Noir. Del Toro made the distinction in his Nightmare Alley that while it may have the trappings of the supernatural - the lead character was supposed to materialize a ghost - that it was all a con. He said the film was more existential horror than what most people consider horror.

I have probably read some of the stories by the authors you mentioned: "The Swords" by Aickman, "The Companion" by Campell, and know of others like The Black Carousel by Grant. Others I may not. I have this excellent collection by Beaumont.

[miguel1984]

Daniel Knauf, the creator of the Carnivàle TV series, told me on Twitter that he was partly inspired by Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes and the movie Freaks, so I guess it could be considered as part of the carnival noir subgenre.

Carnivàle Intro | 1080p HD - YouTube

Carnivàle Trailer - YouTube

[bendk]

Quote Originally Posted by miguel1984

Daniel Knauf, the creator of the Carnivàle TV series, told me on Twitter that he was partly inspired by Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes and the movie Freaks, so I guess it could be considered as part of the carnival noir subgenre.

I think so. I was aware of this series, but I have never seen it. My library has it. American Horror Story did a story arc for Season 4 called "Freak Show". It is on Amazon Prime Video. It has gotten favorable reviews. I watched some of it, but it got a little far-fetched, IMO, and I haven't finished it.

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Table of Contents:

Ramsey Campbell – The Words Between
Damien Angelica Walters – Take a Walk in the Night, My Love
Rhys Hughes – Confessions of a Medicated Lurker
Robert Levy – Conversion
Maura McHugh – A Rebellious House
David Nickle – The Long Dream
Janice Lee – Eyes Looking
Richard Gavin – Breathing Black Angles
S.P. Miskowski – Somnambule
Nathan Carson – The Projection Booth
Jeffrey Thomas – The Mayor of Elementa
Nadia Bulkin – Et Spiritus Sancti
Orrin Grey – Blackstone: A Hollywood Gothic
Reggie Oliver – The Ballet of Dr. Caligari
Cody Goodfellow – Bellmer’s Bride, or The Game of the Doll
Michael Griffin – The Insomniac Who Slept Forever
Paul Tremblay – Further Questions for the Somnambulist
Michael Cisco – The Righteousness of Conical Men
Molly Tanzer – That Nature Which Peers Out in Sleep
Daniel Mills – A Sleeping Life
John Langan – To See, To Be Seen
Gemma Files – Caligarism