Ira Levin’s The Stepford Wives, with its clear, crisp prose is nothing like the 2004 movie I once saw. And that’s a good thing, as it is much, much better. In fact, forget I even mentioned that.
Stepford is just another American suburb: a nice little town, with a cozy center, perfect little houses with nicely trimmed lawns behind immaculate white picket fences, where nothing terrible ever happens. Or so I imagine. And then you have the Stepford wives, who seem just too good to be true. And Joanna, our heroine, is about to find out the how and why of their obsessive Hausfau-ness.
While googling the novel, I came across The Stepford Wives Organization, who [SPOILER ALERT] put Levin’s braindead housekeeping robo-zombie wives up on a pedestal [/SPOILER ALERT] and try to be like them. As I can’t quite figure out whether they’re serious or not, I’m calling Poe’s Law.
- Book read
- Ira Levin — The Stepford Wives
- First line
- The Welcome Wagon lady, sixty if she was a day but working at youth and vivacity (ginger hair, red lips, a sunshine-yellow dress), twinkled her eyes and teeth at Joanna and said, “You’re really going to like it here! It’s a nice town with nice people! You couldn’t have made a better choice!”