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Nightmares: Rosemary's Baby / The Stepford Wives / A Kiss Before Dying
Nightmares: Three Great Suspense Novels
Rosemary's Baby. The Stepford Wives. A Kiss Before Dying
Rosemary's Baby. The Stepford Wives. A Kiss Before Dying
- GenresFiction
464 pages, Hardcover
First published September 7, 1981
86 people want to read
About the author
Ira Levin
75 books1,732 followersLevin graduated from the Horace Mann School and New York University, where he majored in philosophy and English.
After college, he wrote training films and scripts for television.
Levin's first produced play was No Time for Sergeants (adapted from Mac Hyman's novel), a comedy about a hillbilly drafted into the United States Air Force that launched the career of Andy Griffith. The play was turned into a movie in 1958, and co-starred Don Knotts, Griffith's long-time co-star and friend. No Time for Sergeants is generally considered the precursor to Gomer Pyle, USMC.
Levin's first novel, A Kiss Before Dying, was well received, earning him the 1954 Edgar Award for Best First Novel. A Kiss Before Dying was turned into a movie twice, first in 1956, and again in 1991.
Levin's best known play is Deathtrap, which holds the record as the longest-running comedy-thriller on Broadway and brought Levin his second Edgar Award. In 1982, it was made into a film starring Christopher Reeve and Michael Caine.
Levin's best known novel is Rosemary's Baby, a horror story of modern day satanism and the occult, set in Manhattan's Upper West Side. It was made into a film starring Mia Farrow and John Cassavetes. Ruth Gordon won an Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her performance. Roman Polanski, who wrote and directed the film, was nominated for Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium.
Other Levin novels were turned into movies, including The Boys from Brazil in 1978; The Stepford Wives in 1975 and again in 2004; and Sliver in 1993.
Stephen King has described Ira Levin as "the Swiss watchmaker of suspense novels, he makes what the rest of us do look like cheap watchmakers in drugstores." Chuck Palahniuk, in , calls Levin's writing "a smart, updated version of the kind of folksy legends that cultures have always used."
Ira Levin died from a heart attack at his home in Manhattan, on 12 November 2007. He was seventy-eight at the time of his death.
After college, he wrote training films and scripts for television.
Levin's first produced play was No Time for Sergeants (adapted from Mac Hyman's novel), a comedy about a hillbilly drafted into the United States Air Force that launched the career of Andy Griffith. The play was turned into a movie in 1958, and co-starred Don Knotts, Griffith's long-time co-star and friend. No Time for Sergeants is generally considered the precursor to Gomer Pyle, USMC.
Levin's first novel, A Kiss Before Dying, was well received, earning him the 1954 Edgar Award for Best First Novel. A Kiss Before Dying was turned into a movie twice, first in 1956, and again in 1991.
Levin's best known play is Deathtrap, which holds the record as the longest-running comedy-thriller on Broadway and brought Levin his second Edgar Award. In 1982, it was made into a film starring Christopher Reeve and Michael Caine.
Levin's best known novel is Rosemary's Baby, a horror story of modern day satanism and the occult, set in Manhattan's Upper West Side. It was made into a film starring Mia Farrow and John Cassavetes. Ruth Gordon won an Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her performance. Roman Polanski, who wrote and directed the film, was nominated for Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium.
Other Levin novels were turned into movies, including The Boys from Brazil in 1978; The Stepford Wives in 1975 and again in 2004; and Sliver in 1993.
Stephen King has described Ira Levin as "the Swiss watchmaker of suspense novels, he makes what the rest of us do look like cheap watchmakers in drugstores." Chuck Palahniuk, in , calls Levin's writing "a smart, updated version of the kind of folksy legends that cultures have always used."
Ira Levin died from a heart attack at his home in Manhattan, on 12 November 2007. He was seventy-eight at the time of his death.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
December 28, 2020
Ira Levin. You know the guy: novelist, playwright and the man whose stories became adapted into a dozen or so films, from Sliver to The Boys From Brazil. A jobbing writer, whose tight planning is a thing of wonder.
Nightmares is a collection of three of Levin's novels in one book club-style hardback. It's something that I came across in an op shop in a small town in the middle of the country, which is probably fitting because each of the stories are about people fitting in - or trying to fit in - to a community.
The three tales (Rosemary's Baby, The Stepford Wives and A Kiss Before Dying) come from various points in Levin's career (1967, 1972 and his 1953 debut) but each provides a solid example of the thriller. Each story revolves around community and family - through pregnancy, moving town and, well, murder respectively - but there's not as much of a hack or pulp vibe as I'd expected. There's more awareness of social issues than I'd expected, and I was surprised by Levin's use of a woman's viewpoint in some cases. Perhaps I'm more ignorant of this era of thrillers than I'd imagined, but the stories in each seemed to have a bit more depth than I would have thought likely.
As each of these novels has been turned into a film - multiple times in some cases - it's easy to expect that everything would be laid out exactly as you see it on the screen. Laid out. But that's not the case with the novels - there's a lot that's left unsaid in these works, particularly in The Stepford Wives and Rosemary's Baby. This makes the novels an intriguing read: you know what's happened in the filmed versions (hence my lack of narrative recap here) but the text versions are altogether more wily. You're left to your own devices, given room to ponder how things have occurred, and exactly how the ramifications might manifest.
While each of these stories make fine films, it's as short novels that they excel. They're snappy examples of thrilling cinema for the mind, and worth seeking out... assuming you're in an op shop in the middle of nowhere.
Nightmares is a collection of three of Levin's novels in one book club-style hardback. It's something that I came across in an op shop in a small town in the middle of the country, which is probably fitting because each of the stories are about people fitting in - or trying to fit in - to a community.
The three tales (Rosemary's Baby, The Stepford Wives and A Kiss Before Dying) come from various points in Levin's career (1967, 1972 and his 1953 debut) but each provides a solid example of the thriller. Each story revolves around community and family - through pregnancy, moving town and, well, murder respectively - but there's not as much of a hack or pulp vibe as I'd expected. There's more awareness of social issues than I'd expected, and I was surprised by Levin's use of a woman's viewpoint in some cases. Perhaps I'm more ignorant of this era of thrillers than I'd imagined, but the stories in each seemed to have a bit more depth than I would have thought likely.
As each of these novels has been turned into a film - multiple times in some cases - it's easy to expect that everything would be laid out exactly as you see it on the screen. Laid out. But that's not the case with the novels - there's a lot that's left unsaid in these works, particularly in The Stepford Wives and Rosemary's Baby. This makes the novels an intriguing read: you know what's happened in the filmed versions (hence my lack of narrative recap here) but the text versions are altogether more wily. You're left to your own devices, given room to ponder how things have occurred, and exactly how the ramifications might manifest.
While each of these stories make fine films, it's as short novels that they excel. They're snappy examples of thrilling cinema for the mind, and worth seeking out... assuming you're in an op shop in the middle of nowhere.
Displaying 1 of 1 review