Ira Levin – Author Biography
Early Life
Ira Levin was born on August 27, 1929, in New York City. He studied philosophy and English at Drake University and New York University, graduating in 1950. After serving in the Army Signal Corps, he worked as a television writer in the 1950s, an apprenticeship in tight plotting that served his novels well.
Career
Levin’s debut novel, A Kiss Before Dying (1953) — about a charming sociopath who murders for inheritance — won the Edgar Award and announced a master of suspense. But his legend rests on three horror landmarks: Rosemary’s Baby (1967), about a young wife who suspects her neighbors are Satanists; The Stepford Wives (1972), whose title became shorthand for eerie suburban conformity; and The Boys from Brazil (1976), about cloned Hitlers. He was equally successful as a playwright: Deathtrap (1978) became Broadway’s longest-running thriller. He died on November 12, 2007.
Major Works
A Kiss Before Dying (1953), Rosemary’s Baby (1967), This Perfect Day (1970), The Stepford Wives (1972), The Boys from Brazil (1976), Sliver (1991); the play Deathtrap (1978).
Writing Style and Themes
Levin was the minimalist of horror: clean, unadorned prose; ordinary settings; dread built through small, accumulating wrongness rather than gore. His great theme is the conspiracy of the normal — neighbors, husbands, towns — against the vulnerable individual. His heroines are gaslit by everyone around them, and the reader shares their dawning terror. Stephen King called him “the Swiss watchmaker of suspense.”
Legacy
Levin essentially invented the modern horror bestseller, and “Stepford wife” and “Rosemary’s Baby” entered the language. Rosemary’s Baby (film, 1968) launched the Satanic-horror cycle; his influence runs through everything from Get Out to domestic thrillers. He won the Bram Stoker Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003.
