Fellowship & Fairydust

The writer William Lindsay Gresham (1909-1962) has the distinction of being known in two very different areas.

Writers and readers familiar with C.S. Lewis know that Gresham was married to Joy Davidman from 1942 to 1954, during which time they had two sons—David and Douglas. Following their divorce, Davidman moved to England with their sons. She married Lewis in 1956. The story of their relationship has been dramatized in the play (and multiple films) titled Shadowlands. Douglas later became a key figure in the C.S. Lewis estate.

Writers and readers familiar with crime fiction know Gresham better for his 1946 crime novel Nightmare Alley, adapted into a 1947 noir film starring Tyrone Power.

While Gresham’s second novel, Limbo Tower, had less success, he had a prolific career as a magazine writer. His short stories, ranging from crime to fantasy/science-fiction, appeared in publications like The Saturday Evening Post, Atlantic Monthly, and Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. His nonfiction work appeared in publications like Life, Redbook, and Colliers. Many of his articles provide an inside look at the entertainers (particularly magicians) who populate circuses and carnivals. Gresham provided a deeper look at this world in his nonfiction books Monster Midway and Houdini: The Man Who Walked Through Walls.

A Gresham biography has yet to be released. As of this writing, the most in-depth profiles of his life appear in Abigail Santamaria’s 2015 Davidman biography and Bret Wood’s profile for the 2013 Gresham anthology Grindshow. He has also been profiled in Writer’s Chronicle, The Skeptical Inquirer, and Paul Duncan’s book Noir Fiction: Dark Pathways.

Despite the lack of scholarship on Gresham, interest in his work has risen in the last 20 years. Nightmare Alley continues to be available in many editions—including a limited edition released by Centipede Press in 2013, the same publisher that released Grindshow. In 2003, Spain Rodriguez released a graphic novel adaptation. In 2010, a musical adaptation premiered with music and books by Jonathon Brielle. In 2021, Guillermo del Toro released a new movie adaptation starring Bradley Cooper.

Lesser-known Gresham works have also returned to print. Grindshow collected 24 short stories and articles, many never republished. In 2008, Douglas A. Anderson included the short story “Dream Dust Factory” in his anthology Tales Before Narnia. In 2021, Le Passager Clandestin released a pocketbook edition of the short story “The Star Gypsies,” translated into French. The same year, Dunce Books released a limited edition reprint of Monster Midway.

The lack of a biography makes it hard to pinpoint details on Gresham’s life, and the passing of time has affected who can be asked. Davidman died in 1960 of cancer. David Gresham died in 2014.

However, while researching Gresham’s contributions to The Baum Bugle, I connected with his stepdaughter, Rosemary Simmons. Rosemary met Gresham at four years old, when she and her brother, Bob, came with their mother to live at the Greshams’ home in Staatsburg, New York. Their mother, Renee Rodriguez, was related to Davidman. When Davidman took a six-month trip to England in 1952-1953, her sons stayed in Staatsburg with Rosemary, Bob, Gresham, and Renee. Gresham and Renee married in 1954, and the marriage continued until his death.

Rosemary was kind enough to share her memories and thoughts about Gresham.

Interview Questions

For the benefit of those who don’t know the full Gresham family history, can you tell us how you are related to him?

Joy Davidman Gresham was first cousin to my mother, Renee Rodriguez Gresham. Bill Gresham became my cousin by marriage to Joy, and later my stepfather with his marriage to my mother.

What are some of your memories of Bill Gresham?

There are so many to relate from the ten years that he was in my life that it would be hard to pick any particular one. The main things I remember are that he was a kind, loving father figure to me, that he was a very unique, interesting person, and that he was extremely intelligent. He always made me feel special. He always had time to answer my questions and discuss anything I wanted to talk about.

What were Renee and Bill like as a couple?

Renee and Bill were a very loving couple. In the eight years they were married, I can honestly say that I never heard a cross word between them. Bill was always patient, even when my Mom would take forever getting ready for an evening out, she would apologize, and Bill would always tell her she was beautiful and worth the wait. They seemed very well suited to each other, and I truly believe that they were each other’s soul mates.

I attribute the fact that I never saw Bill’s tumultuous past behavior to the fact that he had finally found someone he was truly happy with. My mother’s ultimatum that he not drink had a lasting effect, and he remained in AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) throughout the rest of his life, even at the very end when he was diagnosed with cancer. Their words and actions always conveyed how much they loved each other. His death was a devastating blow to my mother.

Who were some authors who influenced Gresham, or ones that he talked about?

He really didn’t talk about other authors other than John Dickson Carr, whom he was close friends with.¹

That is interesting, because I was wondering about that myself. I knew Carr autographed at least one book for Gresham, and that around 1962, Gresham asked that Carr be given the material he had collected for a book on D.D. Hume. Do you recall him ever mentioning Carr?

I remember many occasions when Bill talked about, or we visited with John Dickson Carr. He considered him a close friend and, as such, was in frequent contact with him.

How did your brother, Bob, relate to Bill?

Bob did not have as close a relationship with Bill as I did due to the fact that he was older than me and had formed a relationship with our father to some degree. While I always saw Bill as my father figure, I think Bob struggled with that. There was never any overt tension, just not the closeness that I experienced.

Joy Davidman was your mother’s cousin. How do you remember her?

I do not have very positive recollections of Joy. As a small child, I found her cold and intimating, quite the opposite of my mother, who was a very warm, loving parent. After she left for England for the first time, leaving my mother to care for the family, my mother became the mother figure to the children.

Bill’s sons, David and Douglas, shared a home with you for a while before moving with their mother to England. What were they like as children?

Douglas was wonderful! He was just another older brother to both Bob and myself. We got along wonderfully, and he became our protector against David, who was very bullying and arrogant. We had free rein of the property and wandered hither and yon. An example I remember was for Halloween, my mom made costumes for all of us. The theme was to be Robin Hood—Doug was Robin Hood, Bob was Will Scarlett, and I was Maid Marian. David refused to participate and had my mother make a costume for him as Julius Caesar—just how David would have seen himself.

The bond we formed as children has remained to this day. After almost thirty years apart, when we reunited with Doug in the 1980s, it was as if we picked up where we left off. While we see each other infrequently, we still remain in contact with each other.

Can you tell us more about the time you and Douglas got to reconnect?

My mother was being interviewed by Lyle Dorsett for a book he was writing on Joy and C.S. Lewis.² He mentioned to Mom that he was in touch with Douglas and asked if she would object to giving Douglas Mom’s contact information. Mom indicated that she was fine with that, and Douglas reached out to her. We were all living in Port Charlotte, Florida, at the time.

Douglas arranged to come and visit us sometime around 1980 or 1981. Between 1980-1983, Doug visited us several times, including one time when he brought his entire family (Merrie and four kids) to visit us. In 1983 we all moved to Ocala, Florida, and from that point in time, Doug visited us there. The last time Douglas visited Mom was in 2005 when she was in hospice just days before her death.³

Bill did so many things. He was a Greenwich Village folk singer, an amateur magician, and he wrote about everything from cheetah training to tuberculosis wards. What’s one side of his writing that you really enjoy?

I did enjoy his science fiction/fantasy writing. As an adult reading Nightmare Alley, I appreciated his talent for dialog and placing you in a setting you were unfamiliar with in normal life.

There’s a tendency to speak about Gresham as a writer who peaked with his first novel and struggled a lot from there. Do you think he felt that way?

I think Bill struggled with a lot of things: the loss of his boys, financial burdens, and health issues. While he was happy with his life with my mom, he still had a lot of issues to deal with. I did not note any depression, just a hard-working man trying to earn a living as a freelance writer. He had a home office and appeared to me to be very disciplined and dedicated to his writing. Once we moved to New York, my mother always worked in order to keep a steady stream of money coming in since, with freelance work, it was feast or famine.

I had the opportunity to see some of Bill’s unpublished writings at Wheaton College’s Marion E. Wade Center, including some really striking poems he wrote.⁴ Most of them reference Spain and have a lot of war imagery, referencing his service in the Spanish Civil War. Any thoughts on how that experience affected him?

Bill never really mentioned much about that time in his life or his experiences there.

Some of the best material in Gresham’s book Monster Midway include inside looks at circus and magic acts—including things he tried himself, like fire-eating. Any memories of him doing magic routines?

I have wonderful memories of Bill’s circus and magic acts. How many kids get to brag that their Dad can eat fire?! He would often entertain us with sleight of hand and, of course, on special occasions, his fire-eating act. Bill also had several magician friends, such as The Amazing Randy and Jay Marshall, who would often visit and entertain us. One friend, Clayton Rawson, lived close to us in Westchester County. During the summer, he would host a gathering at his house of families and friends, which included magic shows on an outdoor stage and even a seance in the evening. These were always fun events.

Plenty of people have talked about the novel Nightmare Alley, less people know that Gresham wrote fantasy and science fiction stories. What can you tell us about this side of his work?

Bill rarely talked to me about his writing other than the two books, Houdini: The Man Who Walked Through Walls (which enjoyed some success) and The Book of Strength. I also remember being excited when one of his works made it to TV—a detective program, Checkmate.⁵

Bill was a great admirer of Harry Houdini. When he was researching the book and writing about him, he would often tell us anecdotes about his life. He was pleased that it was relatively well received. 

If I have the chronology right, Bill moved from New York to Florida in 1954, but the family was living in New York by the time he passed away. What motivated the move back to New York?

When we were living in Florida, first in Hialeah and then in Ocala, Bill was editor of All Florida Magazine, which included him writing stories for the magazine. We often went as a family to various venues that he was writing about such as Weeki Wachee Springs, Cypress Gardens, John Hamlet’s Birds of Prey, etc.

During this time, Bill continued to do freelance writing, but it was decided at some point that being separated from his agent in New York was not advantageous to that endeavor. We therefore moved to New Rochelle, N.Y., in the summer of 1956.

Tarot cards play a big part in Nightmare Alley, and later Gresham wrote a preface to a Charles Williams thriller about tarot cards called The Greater Trumps.⁶ Any thoughts on how Gresham perceived tarot cards? Did he think they were a trick or something with genuine power?

My impression was that it was just another trick/act.

Gresham’s last published book was a bodybuilding guide called The Book of Strength, which I assumed was written for the money. I was surprised at the Wade Center to discover a biographical statement where he talks excitedly about how much he was enjoying bodybuilding. Do you remember this period?

I do remember this time. He was excited about working with weights to build up his strength, and I remember him showing Bob and me various exercises and discussing their importance. I did not perceive it as just a money-making endeavor but rather something he was truly interested in doing.

Gresham looked for spiritual truth in many places. He was a Presbyterian deacon for a while. At other periods, he dabbled in Dianetics, Zen Buddhism, yoga, self-help—many different paths, but he never seems to have stopped looking. Today, we might call him a spiritual seeker. Any thoughts on what drove him to seek the spiritual?

I remember him doing meditation. I think his innate sense of questioning and also a sincere desire to find peace of mind in what had been a troubled life led him to keep looking for “the answer” to life, whatever that might be.

The William Lindsay Gresham archives, including his personal library and files of his publications, are available at the Marion E. Wade Center at Wheaton College.

More resources about Nightmare Alley can be found in a blog series by A Pilgrim in Narnia, including thoughts on the multiple film adaptations and Gresham’s writings about his spiritual journey.

Interviewer Notes

1. John Dickson Carr (1906-1977) was a detective story author associated with the Golden Age of Detective Fiction, one of the few Americans admitted into the Detection Club. Carr dedicated his 1961 novel The Demoniacs to Renee and William Gresham (I would like to thank to Diego Domingo for alerting me to this fact). Neil Tobin discusses Carr and Gresham in his article “The Secret Society of Golden Age Magical Mystery Writers” for the March 2023 issue of Genii Magazine.

2. Lyle W. Dorsett’s book was first published as And God Came In in 1983, followed by new editions titled Joy and C.S. Lewis and A Love Observed.

3. Following Renee’s death, Gerald Malanga wrote a poem about her, “Renee Gresham, Widow of William Lindsay Gresham, 1909-1962.” The poem was published in the February 2015 issue of Poetry.

4. To the best I can determine, only one of these poems has been published: “The Last Kilometer” appeared in War Poems of the United Nations, edited by Joy Davidman.

5. The Checkmate episode “Don’t Believe A Word She Says” was broadcast on January 28, 1961. It was based on the Gresham short story of the same name published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine (August 1956). The teleplay was by Robert C. Dennis (1915-1983), whose work ranged from Charlie’s Angels to The Outer Limits.

At least one other Gresham story was adapted for TV. The Alcoa Theatre episode “The Best Way to Go” was broadcast on June 15, 1959. The short story of the same name was published in The Saturday Evening Post (May 22, 1948). The teleplay was by Leonard Freeman, later known for creating the TV show Hawaii Five-O.

Rosemary also recalls family excitement about proposed plans (probably discussed by Gresham and his agent, Carl Bryant) for one of Gresham’s speculative short stories, probably “The Star Gypsies,” to be adapted for The Twilight Zone – “as a family, we were great fans of Twilight Zone.” These plans apparently never materialized, though any paper evidence could potentially be in Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling’s archives. As of this writing, those archives are maintained at Ithaca College, New York. Some other Serling materials have been collected by the Wisconsin Historical Society.

Documents in the Wade Center archives suggest there were at least plans for other TV work. The archives contain outlines for six TV episodes: “Falling Star,” “The Dream Dust Factory,” “The Lady From Last Chance,” “Time Out of Mind,” “The Violence of Professor LaGrange,” and “Choir Angel.” As of this writing, I have not located any scholarship on whether these are Gresham’s own teleplays or written by others based on his work, or whether they were produced (and if so, for what TV series). Scholars wishing to pursue these possibilities can find the outlines in Box 3, Folders 296-298 in the William Lindsay Gresham Papers.

6. Charles Williams (1886-1945) was another member of Lewis’ Inklings circle at Oxford. He is best known for writing supernatural thrillers. Sørina Higgins has discussed The Greater Trumps and Gresham’s preface in a post for her website, The Oddest Inkling. Santamaria states in her biography that Davidman was also familiar with Williams: during her 1952-1953 trip to England, she met Williams’ widow, Florence “Michal” Conway Williams.