The Devil with a capital D rarely shows up in horror novels. The same is true of his subordinate demons, those fallen angels mentioned in 2 Peter 2:4 and other Biblical passages. At first glance, this seems like an odd omission. After all, a significant proportion of the reading public believes in the Devil, and many even testify to their personal struggles with his lures and wiles. Isn't he a much more plausible source of existential terror than make-believe werewolves, vampires and zombies?
Yet something strange occurred in horror fiction at precisely the moment when the Western world took on the guise of a secular society. The same era that gave us X-rated films, no-fault divorce and Roe v. Wade also saw Rosemary’s Baby and The Exorcist climb up the bestseller lists. Church attendance may have dropped off, and even when the congregation packed the pews, ministers didn't talk about Lucifer quite as often as in the old days. But warnings against Satan went mainstream in movies and films.
You would think that, by 1967, the general public would have moved beyond witch hunting. After all, the last Salem witch trial had taken place in May 1693. When Ira Levin published Rosemary’s Baby on March 12, 1967, war was escalating in Vietnam, the Apollo program was making strides toward a manned lunar landing, and (on that very same day) the Velvet Underground released its first album, with an Andy Warhol banana on the cover. In the midst of such real world commotion, who was looking for Satan and a witch coven…. especially in the Upper West Side of Manhattan. (As one pundit later joked: the fact that Rosemary’s struggling actor husband could afford an apartment in their posh neighborhood should have been the "first clue that he was in league with the Devil.")
But Levin hit the mark. Rosemary’s Baby was the bestselling horror novel of the decade, and spurred a huge movie hit the following year. The horror took on a unnerving resonance when the film’s director, Roman Polanski, started his own downward spiral a few months after the release of the movie. Polanski's wife Sharon Tate, an actress best known for horror films who had played an uncredited role in Rosemary’s Baby , was murdered in one of the most gruesome and highly publicized criminal cases of the 20th century. And subsequently, on the day before the tenth anniversary of the publication of Rosemary’s Baby , was arrested on sexual assault charges—initiating lifelong battle with legal authorities. Okay, the story that Rosemary’s Baby was a cursed movie may be going too far, but I will note, for what it's worth, that Mia Farrow, star of the film, dealt with scandal and controversy in matters relating to her own 'babies' and that the Dakota, which served as the film location for the protagonist’s apartment in the film, was the site of John Lennon’s murder in 1980—indeed, on the same spot where a woman jumps to her death in the movie. Also, Krzysztof Komeda, the innovative composer who contributed the score to the film and was a close friend to Polanski, died from injuries sustained in a fall several months before Tate's murder. He was only 38 years-old at the time, and the circumstances surrounding his untimely demise are almost as murky and clouded with controversy as the death-by-falling in Levin's novel.
Even before these incidents, the story of Rosemary's Baby exuded a dark aura. That was part of the allure that turned the book into a best - seller in 1967 . But before the history of this tale was complete, it c ame to encompass a whole host of additional macabre elements— so much so that any full account involves many of the most tragic, controversial or demented characters of the second half of the 20th century: Charles Manson, John Lennon, Sharon Tate, Mark David Chapman, Roman Polanski, Mia Farrow, Woody Allen and others.
Given this complex and disturbing lineage, readers approaching Ira Levin’s novel for the first time may be surprised by the subtlety and slow pacing of Rosemary’s Baby . Almost ever terrifying detail in this book is presented indirectly. The reader—much like Rosemary herself —is forced to guess at what evil deeds are happening behind the scenes. Almost everything in open view seems innocent, almost banal. Rosemary Woodhouse and her husband Guy have moved into a new apartment in an exclusive residence. She has been warned that the Bramford, despite its old-fashioned elegance, has a troubled history. Previous residents have been implicated in dark crimes, and the building has been the site of a disproportionate number of violent deaths. But these must be mere coincidences, no?
This kind of bland set-up is Levin's specialty. He is the master of horror with a blasé face. He created the recipe in Rosemary’s Baby , and followed it again with comparable success five years later in The Stepford Wives (1972). In the universe of Ira Levin, evil does not arrive in a flak jacket with guns blazing. It is mundane and undetectable to the casual observer. It lives behind a façade of bourgeois normalcy. The terror, when it appears, comes in the form of a gradual realization. This slow build-up creates an inexorable tension that the conventional fright fests—with ghosts and ghouls leaping out of dark corners—cannot match. This is the horror of everyday life, and as such inescapable. You can't lock it out, because it has already taken up residence inside your home.
Rosemary is drawn into the life of her meddling next-door neighbors, Minnie and Roman Castevet. They are nosy and intrusive, but these crotchety senior citizens hardly seem dangerous. And they are so sympathetic when they learn that Rosemary wants to start a family. They even have influence with an esteemed obstetrician, and will secure his services at a sharp discount to his usual rates.
Perhaps she should have seen the warning signs. But they were so easy to miss: a inexplicable suicide of a young woman residing with her neighbors; strange sounds from the adjacent apartment; a bizarre, feverish dream on the night her baby was conceived; peculiar instructions from her new doctor. A family friend tries to warn her, but he has a sudden medical emergency that leaves him in a coma. Rosemary eventually puts the pieces together, but even after she finally realizes her vulnerability, she doesn't know where to turn. Even her husband seems part of the widening conspiracy. And what outsider would believe her story of witches and devil worship in modern day Manhattan?
Rosemary’s Baby is not a flashy book. You won’t find incisive metaphors or poetic descriptions of people and settings. The prose proceeds with the language of quotidian life. But that simply reinforces the banality of Ira Levin’s conception of evil. The plotting and pacing, however, are handled expertly, and the momentum accelerates in the books final pages. Even if readers have grasped the dangers faced by our protagonist—perhaps long before Rosemary herself is aware of their scope—Levin still has surprises in store. After all, Rosemary Woodhouse is not just a victim, she is also a mother. If the birth of an infant serves as a fitting conclusion to one type of story; it also suggests the beginning of many other tales, perhaps charmingly domestic or chillingly demonic, as the circumstances warrant. As you might guess, given Mr. Levin’s predilections, our surprise ending combines both these extremes, and is all the more disturbing for the ease with which opposites coexist.
Ted Gioia writes about music, literature and popular culture. His latest book is How to Listen to Jazz from Basic Books .
At the peak of the secular 1960s, Ira Levin turned a story about Lucifer into the bestselling horror novel of the decade