Rosemary’s Baby: Ira Levin

I was in a mood to read a horror story with ghosts and all. I had only 2 books in my TBR pile which fit the criteria.
Ghosts Stories and
Rosemary’s baby
Ghosts Stories wasn’t really scary. I read one story and found it a little boring. So I shifted to Rosemary’s baby.

This is from the back cover of the book.
In 1967, when Rosemary’s Baby was first published, Ira Levin’s masterpiece gave horror an innocent new face. It startled critics, stunned readers with its unique and deceptively calm voice, and caused a worldwide sensation. It found fear where we never thought to look before, and dared to bring it into sunlight. To this day, Rosemary’s Baby is as disquieting as shattering glass in an empty basement, and as unsettling as the cry of a newborn coming from behind a newly plastered wall.

Fits right? Only this book does not have ghosts. It based on Satanism. Today we have so many examples of books and movies based on Satanism. But may be back then it wasn’t so much popular and well known. That’s why the sensation.

Rosemary and Guy Woodhouse, a newly married couple, move to a new apartment house, Bram, one of famous apartment buildings smack in the city. It is one of those supposedly haunted houses.

Rosemary desperately wants a baby and Guy is busy with his career as a rising actor. Guy is not very interested in a baby. But then suddenly her wish is granted and she is pregnant due to one night in a half conscious state and seeing things she thinks she imagined. The rest of the book is how Rosemary discovers the danger her baby is in and she realizes she can trust no one with it. I don’t want to give any spoilers, so I won’t go into further details.

There is a movie based on this book which was a hit and so I assumed many people must have already seen the movie, read the book or at least heard about it. But here in India, that’s not the case. My friends thought it’s a chick lit. A romance novel where the guy leaves the girl with a baby and how the baby manages to get both of them together and clear up the misunderstandings between them. So much for the title.

But I loved the book. Though I wanted to read a book that could possibly creep me out, this one sure kept me interested till the end. It’s an easy and a fast read.
The sequel to this book is called ‘Son of Rosemary’. If you haven’t read the book or seen the movie, I suggest you don’t read the reviews. They are all spoilers.

And after googling I realized Ira Levin was a man. I assumed Ira is the name of a woman. Oops. He died at the age of 78 in 2007. “I feel guilty that ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ led to ‘The Exorcist,’ ‘The Omen,’ ” he told The Los Angeles Times in 2002. I guess we should be thankful to him writing Rosemary’s baby as well as indirectly giving us chilling books like Exorcist and Omen.