Rosemary's Baby [Mass Market Paperback]

Ira Levin (Author)

Book Description

Release date: September 1, 1997

She is a housewife—young, healthy, blissfully happy. He is an actor—charismatic and ambitious. The spacious, sun-filled apartment on Manhattan's Upper West Side is their dream home—a dream that turns into an unspeakable nightmare. . . .

Enter the chilling world of Ira Levin—where terror is as near as your new neighbors . . . and where evil wears the most innocent face of all. . . .

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

When published in 1967, Rosemary's Baby was one of the first contemporary horror novels to become a national bestseller. Ira Levin's second novel (he went on to write such fine thrillers as A Kiss Before Dying, The Stepford Wives, and The Boys from Brazil), Rosemary's Baby, remains perhaps his best work. The author's mainstream "this is how it really happened" style undeniably also made the novel his most widely imitated. The plot line is deceptively simple: What if you were a happily married young woman, living in New York, and one day you awoke to find yourself pregnant? And what if your loving husband had--apparently--sold your soul to Satan? And now you were beginning to believe that your unborn child was, in reality, the son of Satan? Levin subtly makes it all totally plausible, unless of course, dear Rosemary--or the reader--can no longer distinguish fantasy from reality! A wonderfully chilling novel, it was later faithfully transformed into an equally unnerving motion picture. In 1997, a sequel was spawned, Son of Rosemary. --Stanley Wiater

From Publishers Weekly

Farrow's soothing reading of Ira Levin's classic returns her to the project that made her a star in Roman Polanski's eerily sedate thriller. Rosemary and Guy Woodhouse move into an ancient Manhattan apartment building and are immediately befriended by a pushy older couple, Minnie and Roman Castavet. When Rosemary becomes pregnant, she begins to suspect that the people in her building are satanists and that she may be carrying a demon's baby. What makes Levin's tale so haunting is how the horror is kept inconspicuous so tensions mount as ordinary events turn disturbing. Caedmon's packaging is outstanding, with inner sleeves listing track lengths and the first few words spoken on each track, making it easier to navigate. Farrow is an ideal choice as a reader for her history as well as her expressive and controlled reading. She doesn't attempt different voices for each character, but she does adapt a flat, nasal tone for Minnie (rather than imitate Ruth Gordon from the film). Subpar sound mars this classy recording: the volume is low and Farrow's voice sounds like it was recorded in a large, hollow space. Levin's thriller was previously recorded by Eileen Heckert in a 1986 three-hour abridgment from Random House Audio. (Nov.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Signet (September 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0451194004
• ISBN-13: 978-0451194008
• Product Dimensions: 4.3 x 0.9 x 7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (150 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #310,691 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

46 of 50 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Spooky Shocker Classic April 1, 2001

By JLind555

Format:Mass Market Paperback

Why am I giving this book 5 stars when the writing isn't especially great? Because Ira Levin hit every right note in "Rosemary's Baby" and made it into an instantaneous horror classic. On one level, it's a great horror story; on another, it's also a kind of morality play: God has a son; what happens when the devil gets jealous and wants one too?

Enter Rosemary and Guy Woodhouse, almost-newlyweds, new tenants in an old, luxury building called "The Bramford", famous for its high ceilings and working fireplaces, notorious for its unsavory happenings (dead baby wrapped in newspapers abandoned in the basement). They are warned off by Hutch, an old friend of Rosemary's who knows all about the building's sordid history, but disregard the omens.

Rosemary is a housewife (yes, back in the day there actually were such things) who wants to be a mother. Guy is an actor and a rising star whose talent is overshadowed only by his unlimited ambition. Next door are the Castevets, Minnie and Roman, a delightfully ditzy old couple who just happen to head a coven of witches who have made a pact with the devil. Rosemary wants a baby; Guy wants a leading part in a hit play; the witches want... well, all the ingredients are there for a devil's brew that sets the pot boiling wonderfully for 260 pages.

After a nightmarish impregnation, Rosemary goes through a hellacious pregnancy, presided over by Dr. Sapirstein, a famous "society" obstetrician who assures Rosemary that her pains will go away in a day or two. Hutch's death after a long, suspicious illness jolts Rosemary out of her cocoon of trusting ignorance, and here Levin builds the horror up ever so insidiously until it hits you like a sledgehammer. Rosemary discovers who her neighbors are; that they have drawn her husband into a diabolical plot, and when she runs to Dr. Sapirstein for protection, she finds out that he too is... well, if you can't trust your husband and your obstetrician, who can you trust? Rosemary is left alone to try to save her baby from what she fears is a plot against his life and safety, remembering that dead baby in the basement; there's a plot afoot, all right, but what it is, is something neither Rosemary or the reader could possibly imagine until they stare at it, literally and figuratively, in the eyes.

Levin is one terrific storyteller and he manages to time the action to coincide perfectly with the story line; Rosemary conceives, ironically, on the night of the Pope's visit to New York in early October, and the baby is born, fittingly, right after midnight, "exactly half the year around from you-know". Some readers have complained that the ending is lame after all the shock and horror, and they have a point, but it's fun to wonder, how else could Levin have ended this story? It's a perfect psychological horror fantasy, no blood, no gore, no things that go bump in the night, but just the ordinary neighbors next door that can and do raise all kinds of hell. It's a classic that has stood the test of time; after 35 years, it's still a great read.

Judy Lind

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A pregnant woman discovers a satanic sacrifice plot October 21, 2003

By OverTheMoon

Format:Mass Market Paperback

Rosemarys Baby is extremely easy to read and you will get through the book in no time at all. It is short, about 200 pages and is pretty much more of a novella than a full bloodied horror manuscript. None the less - it is still extremely satisfying and the size and depth of the story is particularly suitable for the subject matter at hand.

The plot revolves around the newly wed Rosemary and Guy Woodhouse who have moved into a huge apartment in a building known as the Bramford in New York. Rosemary wants children and Guy, an actor, wants to further his career. Hutch, a friend of Rosemary, tells her that the Bramford is a "danger zone" because of previous murders, suicides and diabolical deeds that have gone on there in the past. Sure enough many of these atrocities slowly begin to unveil themselves much to the dismay of Rosemary. Guy sees these events as just a coincidence and the elderly occupants who live in the Bramford seem to be all too innocent to be involved in plotting murders or faking suicides.

Eventually everything settles down and Rosemary gets pregnant during a nightmare that has her confused but she gradually calms down to prepare for her new born but not without the smothering attention of her neighbors who pop around twenty times a day to help her out. Rosemary casually begins to notice things in the Bramford or about its occupants in passing and slowly suspicion begins to develop in her mind that all may not be as it seems.

There is a classic mystery lurking behind the more horrific avenues found in this great story as Rosemary slowly unravels the unknown which seems to have a diabolical nature. Doctors hint that her pregnancy may be causing undue stress and the reader is left guessing right up until the last few pages as to if there is a plot to sacrifice her baby or if she is going mad in some sort of prenatal depression. The ending is a total shock to the uninformed reader!

Roman Polanski also directed the film version of this book. Both the film and book are excellent choices of entertainment.

Highly recommended original horror!

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Mia Farrow reclaims "Baby" March 10, 2007

By K. Anderson

Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase

As a big, big fan of Roman Polanski's 1968 film "Rosemary's Baby" I couldn't wait to listen to the new audio book of Ira Levin's novel as read by the quintessential Rosemary herself: Mia Farrow.

She certainly doesn't disappoint in this unabridged reading (actress Eileen Heckart did an abridged version several years back) and the years have brought a maturity to her voice that not only brings Rosemary back to vivid life, but infuses the other characters with a distinction and clarity that has you seeing the story play out in your mind as she reads.

Nicely packaged with chapter indexes, it is a great rendering of a great book. And really, having Mia Farrow reading this text is a film fan's dream come true!

Not much of an audiophile, I'm unqualified to rate the recording quality.