The Stepford Wives

Typically I try to keep my not so positive opinions to my self; however, today I have some time and I'll give my two cents.

I was very excited to purchase a copy of this book since I heard so much about the title. Typically when books are turned into movies, is because the story is good. In my experience the books are by far much better than the movie because of the rich details and character development. Well, this book fell short on all categories.

To me, it seemed like this book was written in one sitting. The idea is great but the way the story is told is awful. I didn't care for any of the characters. The author didn't paint a clear picture of the world that these characters live in. Also it does an awful job at giving any kind of closure at the end. I felt like I read the quick overview of the book.

I would recommend any of the movies over this book. They did a better job at giving answers rather than this poorly written book. If you haven't seen the movie, it would be rather hard to even know what this book is about. The ending was one of the worst I've read in many years.

I have read other novels by this previous author and was delighted at receiving, "the stepford wives." However I do have some quirks with the story, I feel that it's charm, like I have noticed in his other books don't come until halfway through the book, also this was an incredibly short story, but these are minor quirks. In the story it is scary and tells a suspenseful tale, however I did not care for the main character as much as I should. I felt empathy for her but not because she was "relatable" or "likeable", but I felt she was more of an "insert yourself" here character. I understand having the main character for the feminist moment, (named something else here) because of the conflict with the housewives. But I felt it showed very little of her intelligence in the book except for one scene, she's supposed to be an independent women but all she does is say it, and just try to encourage women to join her group. But I felt she never really does anything, but just watched. Her only characteristic seems to be feminist and she likes tennis. She's not gullible, but she doesn't show personality Intil the end of the novel. I'm sure most people know the ending of the novel, so I'm going to start spoiling it.
she felt believable when she started going crazy, but going back to her husband when she knows what happening? Going with the men? For a supposed independent female she seems to be rather "weak" and that okay to some degree. I mean she can be weak in some scenes if it's done right, honesty I felt if the author made the novel longer it would be effective. Also I was more interested in Bonnie and the other normal female character, I would have been intrested in seeing them as the main character because they seem to have more personality. So when they turned into the "housewives" I genially felt scared, curious, and empathy for the main character. I think most people like this novel, not because it's good but because of the plot twist and the author, and that blinds them. Even though this book wasn't perfect, I would still recommend it. It is suspenseful in the middle and was quite interesting and has a scary thought. So 3 out of 5

After seeing life-like robots of the presidents at Disneyworld, Ira Levin had an inspiration: what if we could replace living people with robots? Although almost half a century has passed, it cannot anymore be done today than then, and there's no attempt to work through the implications. He just assumed that all men would be in favor of it, and a brief horror novella is constructed.

It is said that a predominate adolescent male fantasy is a large-breasted, sexually compliant haus frau, maintaining a spotless home, an efficient mother, and has the non-combative demeanour of a saint. This fantasy exceeds the imaginings of the post-pubescent, lingering unconsciously or otherwise in the mind-set of middle aged men across the world. In Levin's novella, this wish becomes fulfilment, where groin and brain unite in the creation of the “perfect woman”.

Upon the novella's publication in 1972, the height of the feminist movement, critics believed its focus was the “oppressed woman”, as mere concubine and maid. On closer examination, the book is satirizing the advertising industry, and their manufactured image of the “ideal” housewife or woman, ensuring immaculate, and clean households consuming the products they sell. Even today we can view two home-makers arguing the features and benefits of one toilet bowl cleaner over another. And these women are portrayed as super-housewives, juggling several duties, including child rearing, while driving a Toyota Land Cruiser, and all looking damn beautiful in the process.

Levin's second satirical focus is on the Stepford husbands. Now these thirty to forty something suburban males are hilarious to the point of absurdity. All Stepford husbands belong to the town's “men's association”, a no-girls allowed, cubby house type set-up, to discuss and plan all things “male”. One is reminded of neighbourhood gatherings, barbecues, where the women are grouped together on one side of the yard and the men on the other, only talking amongst each other like clueless boys.

Indeed, The Stepford wives is a direct hit on the media/advertising generated images of consumerist based societies, relentlessly flogging normative middle-class values in what constitutes a perfect world, in their dogged pursuit of the bottom line.

The town of Stepford is decorated in Colonial shop fronts, manicured lawns and white picket fences, maintained by big-breasted, robotic house wives, living the dream, and pushing the benefits of the latest dish washing liquid, docile, sexy and happy.

And isn't this the way life should be?

Reading The Stepford Wives was a first for me because I actually saw the movie version of it (from 2004) before I read the actual book. So going into the novel, I felt as though I already knew the premise which, for the most part, wasn’t wrong. On the other hand, I felt that the book provided some more insights…and a less happy ending…than the movie did.

The story follows Joanna Eberhart, a wife, mother, and budding photographer. Her family moves to the little town of Stepford, a town where all of the women seem remarkably the same and the men are all members of the Men’s Association in town. Joanna, who believes in equality for the sexes, is astounded that all the women in Stepford seem to want to do is clean their houses.

As the novel goes on, Joanna watches her close friends shift from bubbly, loud personalities to the typical “Stepford wife” and becomes convinced that something terrible is happening in the town. She’s right, of course; the men have concocted some plan through which they change their wives into mindless cleaning robots who are reminiscent of the idealized version of women in the past. They make tea, clean, and tend to their husbands. After Joanna realizes this, she tries to run, but ends up being transformed as well. The end of the book switches from Joanna-centric to the view of Ruthanne Hendry, a new woman in town, who sees Joanna in her new form but doesn’t yet realize that there is an issue. This differs greatly from the movie, where Joanna somehow escapes becoming one of these robots and releases the women from their “Stepford spell.”

Now in the past, women were supposed to be meek and mild, prim and proper. The men of Stepford wanted their wives to be like that. However, I almost wonder if the Men’s Association in Stepford wasn’t changing the men into stereotypical male role models. For example, Walter, Joanna’s wife, was a proponent of equal sexes upon entry into Stepford. But at the end he wanted to change her into the historical female stereotype? Something in Stepford was changing the men as well as the women.

I also didn’t quite understand what the women were or how they were being changed. Were the original women murdered and replaced with lifelike animatronics? Or were they given chemicals in order to change? The ending of the book made me lean more towards the animatronics side, especially with the emphasis on Bobbie – Joanna’s friend – being a human, but how they were made into animatronic figures was never really discussed.

Overall, I didn’t find this book to be a horror (as GoodReads tried to convince me that it was) but more along the lines of a short satire of gender roles in society. Not everything was explained but I don’t think the point of the story was explaining the plot as much as it was portraying a societal issue. I think it is kind of creepy how it relates to times today when there are so many gender struggles and inequalities, but at the same time, I don’t think today’s issue is trying to force women to accept an old-fashioned binary as much as it is to accept that women are supposed to be the weaker sex.

Overall, I would rate this novel a 3.5/5 stars. While I wish more was explained, it did make me think and consider the modern state of gender roles.

“When had it begun, her distrust of him, the feeling of nothingness between them? Whose fault was it?”

Looking for a better life, Joanna and Walter Eberhart move their family to the suburb of Stepford. Once there, feminist Joanna realizes that the wives of Stepford are not ordinary. When one of her friends becomes just like them, Joanna wonder if she can escape before it happens to her too?

I was not expecting to like The Stepford Wives as much as I did. While I think it would have been more suspenseful if I had not known the basic plot, this book is still very disturbing and raises some very feminist feelings within me. However, I wish it was longer because it left a few things unfinished.

Honestly, this book has not aged extremely well though. The idea that a woman should be submissive to her husband is even more archaic now than it was during the Women’s Liberation movement. On the other hand, a man wanting a wife that was nothing more than a beautiful doll is even more horrifying now then it was in the 70s. It would be really interesting to see what a modern writer would do with this plot since Joanna is a woman of her time. While Joanna was a freelance photographer, she still portrayed as a stay at home mother most of the time. A modern Joanna would probably have a full time job and have figured out that something was off about the wives of Stepford long before 1970s Joanna did.

Overall, The Stepford Wives delivers a haunting tale of the extremes men will go to counteract changes in their lives. It shows how we really never know another person, even our significant other. It, also, reminders us just how far women have come since the 1970s and how different life could be for women in 2016 if there had not been a Women's Liberation movement. I know this book has scarred me in the best way possible and I will be thinking about it for a very long time to come.

Something about Ira Levin really intrigues and impresses me. The guy wrote a legendary horror novel in Rosemary's Baby. His book This Perfect Day won a Prometheus Hall of fame award and seems universally loved. Only seven books published, all of them on the short side, and five of them have AT LEAST 1 film adaptation. Impressive.

I remember finding Rosemary's Baby at a library sale and instantly grabbing it. Later on when I looked up the author I saw the Stepford Wives and said, "Hey, I've heard about that." For some reason I always really wanted to read this book, so I was very happy when I strolled into a thrift store a few weeks back and came across it. It's very short, at 186 pages with big block words (I doubt that the story is actually novel length), yet has many blurbs praising it, including one from King. In addition, Peter Straub provides an afterword. I applaud the writing for keeping the story moving forward almost constantly while seemingly building something outside the words. You know something's coming, or you think there is, there has to be, right? As a reader, it's always a joy to be kept guessing.

To sum up this book, I'd say the ride is fun, the conclusion is okay, but it certainly felt a bit short of the greatness I expected from it. It's billed of a thriller novel, and without giving too much away, but that's only true for maybe 10% of the time. I do have the feeling that this book is the type that one might want to read through a second time to see if there's anything they missed the first time around (and if there is, I'm sure I missed them). As for now, my 3.5 star rating stand. A good but slightly disappointing book.

Ira Levin surely knew how to inflict horror upon the hapless reader. If "Rosemary's Baby" wasn't enough to frighten you out of your collective wits, then this horrific and scathing satire on the feminist movement of the early 70s surely will. I picked up my copy in a used bookshop, the old copy with the vacant Barbie dolls on the cover. That's what becomes of poor, independent Joanna Eberhart when her family decides to moves to the small Connecticut town of Stepford.

Thinking to get away from the hustle and bustle of city life, Joanna and her husband make the decision to give their children a more quiet and stable upbringing. The house is large and inviting. The trees and serenity of Stepford too enticing to resist. The opportunity to make new friends and resume her blossoming photography career is just what the doctor ordered for Joanna, who found herself in a bit of a rut in New York. Like many career women, she married and had children, thus putting herself on the back burner along with her passion for photography. Her husband encourages the hobby, but you somehow get the feeling that he doesn't approve, especially when Joanna resurrects her darkroom.

Joanna meets Bobbie, a harried housewife who's content with leaving unwashed dishes on the counter because of the exhausting task bringing up a dog and children, not to mention a husband. A close bond forms between the two women while Joanna's husband joins the men's association. A sort of gentlemen's club for the neglected husbands of Stepford, it's a secretive group of men who meet several times a week. Joanna is curious, but her husband says they just talk. Sure, buddy.

Joanna thinks she should start a women's club of her own and discover the Stepford women aren't that interested. They are too preoccupied with baking and cleaning and spoiling their husbands. She and Bobbie soon discover that nearly all the women at one time or other had an association of their own and were business women, lawyers, judges, etc. They begin to wonder at the perfectly coiffed Barbie dolls sashaying up and down the grocery aisle with their impeccably organized shopping carts.

Later, they meet Charmaine, the trophy wife of a wealthy business man. She's no pushover and invites the women over for lunch. Where one day Charmaine is the independent sex kitten playing tennis on her own court, another day she is Donna Reed, with frilly apron and all, and doesn't mind that her husband removed her playground. Curious at this turn of event Joanna and Bobbie start to investigate. Bobbie thinks it may have something to do with the water. Joanna on the other hand, is entertaining several members of her husband's club. One of the them is a former Disney engineer who designed those realistic robotic puppets. Another is a scientist, yet another studies speech patterns and gets Joanna to dictate every known word in the English language onto cassette tapes. She wonders at this, but goes along with it. The men come across as sinister and creepy and you have to ask why is her husband wasting his time on the losers?

Joanna starts to put two and two together, especially after she and Bobbie noticed Charmaine's transformation after her husband whisked her away on a lover's weekend. Bobbie is slated to go with her own husband and Joanna tells her to have a good time, but doesn't think much of it. Not until the plump and plain Bobbie returns with her Donna Reed makeover. Slim, trim, glossed over complete with makeup, bouffant, and bullet bra, Bobbie is now the epitome of cleanliness and waxes poetic on the benefits of pleasing one's husband. Joanna, by now, is horrified and realizes she is next on some demented list. She makes plans to leave Stepford with her children and enlists a therapist's help in doing so. The woman warns her of waiting too long, but by the time Joanna makes her move, it is too late. The men, including her husband are in on it, and Joanna is left with no recourse but escape.

The end of the novel is a slow, horrific buildup to the inevitable. Another woman moves in and is a children's author. Her husband is going to a meeting at the club. Yikes! Later, we see what became of Joanna as she passes by with her organized cart and freshly ironed dress.

A scathing satire of the feminist movement of the early 1970s, this is probably Ira Levin's observations of what men probably thought about the whole thing involving their wives, and the complete displacement of their role in the feminist home. The 1975 movie is rather dark and not at all satirical,while the remake starring Nicole Kidman should be avoided at all costs.

All in all, a great little read about a woman's place in society and what men would probably do to protect their place in the pecking order. Four stars.

I can handle watching or reading just about any level of horror... so what was it about this tiny little novella that I read in an hour that truly chilled me? First, I have never seen the movies... so I had no real preconceived notions other than having seen the commercials. Something about being a girl, who was raised in a society where everything tells you that you have to be beautiful, you have to be talented, and above all you have to be perfect or you are nothing... this book really taps into that mantra. The feeling that every little girl has that "I'm not good enough" most of us (hopefully) follow that up with "but at least I'm ME" and that is where the terror of this book lies.

What if the ultimate deceiver, the true villain is the one person who should love you the most, your protector, your partner, your husband. What if he would change you... take away your identity for his own pleasure... and what if everyone was on his side. How would you hold on, how could you escape?

As you can tell this book really hit a nerve with me... true I was born in 1978, so this was a little before my time, but it hasn't changed all that much even though we want to think so. The book is really about men's desires, or Levin's interpretation of them. That they would be willing to sacrifice their wife's very identity, her being, to make her a mindless barbie that did what they pleased. The men in this book are truly horrifying beings... but even more frightening is that this is a doubt shared by all women, across the globe. From a young age we are taught to doubt ourselves, our physical appearance, our mind, our talent, the love of others. I know women with genius IQ's who act like idiots because that is what men want from them. Though there is no magical overnight drug that can do this to a woman... there is the lifelong barrage of the media and society which does a pretty good job in and of itself.

Off my soapbox now. This book freaked me out... it was very well written, very tight and compact, and rediculously short for the price. I would advise getting it from a library, a used book store, or a friend rather than spending the cover amount on it. Mainly because it is so short. Still, I think this book has a lot of meaning, this book should be read and discussed with others... and to the ladies out there... odds are you will end up a bit unsettled and a bit angry at the end of it all.

I collect books that have movies made from them. One I overlooked until recently was "The Stepford Wives."
I did not give it a thought until I read the introduction written by the person who wrote the screenplay. It was marvelous to read his thoughts on the differences between the book and the movie.
I am going to look for more books in this series. In the mean time, I am leaving pointers on the refrigerator for my wife. I remind her of the leaps in technology since the 70's and that I have to find the local Men's Association. (Fat chance)

The idea of "Stepford Wives", submissive housewives, perfectly content to maintain spotless homes, which finds its source in this story, is a bit of a cliche. But this story isn't really about women who are content in this role. The real story here is about the husbands, and their ultimate objectification of their wives. The husbands of Stepford have found a way to replace their wives, with their unique personalities, hopes, interests and dreams, with automatons that seem to lack any initiative or personality. The men here are truly misogynistic, pursuing a fantasy, unable or unwilling to appreciate women as individuals. Even the most liberal men don't seem to be immune from pull of this fantasy.

When Joanna and Walter Eberhart move to Stepford, they are looking for a quiet refuge from the city. Joanna is a liberal, modern women, who hopes to establish herself as a professional photographer, and finds the bland conformity of her neighbors highly disturbing. As she learns more about Stepford and its history, she worries that she might find herself replaced by another of these robot-like housewives. Can she manage to escape the clutches of the Stepford Men's Association, before it's too late?

The Stepford wives is a succinct book written by Ira Levin. The book is exceedingly mind boggling in a lot of ways. First it was written by a man. And although it seems like feminist literature, Ira Levin does not necessarily identify as feminist nor does he claim to have a written a feminist book. He merely was inspired, perhaps on a cool rainy day when he was out on his porch sipping tea. He let his pen be the brush strokes that painted this immaculate book. Granted Ira's work of art was published in 1972 when women's liberation and equal rights was at best an idealistic dream, so I for one can presume that it was a subtle match for equality in its own right.. The beauty of this satire is that you cannot successfully place it under any one genre. It is ephemeral. In that once you think you have it figured out, it spills into another form.
Admittedly I am a little late to the game. Apparently every body and their dog has read the book or seen one version of the movie or at the every least heard the term(stepford wife) being used smugly in conversation. I first got a whiff of The Stepford wives on one lazy saturday when I didn't have to go into work. I turned on the TV and there it was on TCM. Bryan Forbes's 1975 version was nothing like I had ever seen before. I could relate to the plot in an uncanny way. The suspense was weaved in so delicately, in fact this is essentially what got me obsessing about the movie. It became an addiction. I simply had to know everything about the origin of The Stepford Wives. It is not very often that a movie is just as good as the book. Ira must have been very proud.
The Stepford Wives is about a middle aged couple(Joanna and Walter) who move to a dainty town called Stepford. Upon arrival Joanna realizes that the Stepford wives go about their household chores with cult like precision and unnatural excitement. They simply could not pause long enough to have meaningful conversation without going on about their unfinished ironing or waxing. This made Joanna feel like her mother was Kate Millet as she smugly remarks to Walter once. Stepford women are like a walking commercial for Arm and Hammer laundry detergent. They are "Stay-in-kitchen wives with big boobs and no demands," as Joanna describes them. They always have a perfect crease in their aprons; Their faces are always fully covered with make up and their hair held in an elegant bun and to top it all up they always have a larger than life smile on their faces especially when the laundry comes out whiter than they expected.
Seeing that Stepford was out of step, Joanna does a little digging and discovers that Stepford residents are all typical in the sense that they seem to be either career driven women and or opinionated women whose husbands decide to move them consensually to Stepford. Joanna is even more frantic when Charmaine, then Bobbie her two closest girl pals already seem to have transformed into vacuum cleaner operating zombies. She knows she is next on the agenda. Whilst Joanna eventually became a sugar, spice and everything nice confederate, she put up a pretty good fight. That fight to me is the most important part of the book.
Before Joanna's transformation, and when Charmaine and Bobbie were still untouched. She had a support group of some sort who were willing to chain themselves to fences till the men let women into their association. To tie in with chaining themselves to the fence, Joanna has a healthy amount of righteous anger about the womens' place in Stepford. She gets so agitated about Carol Van Sant's behaviour saying "Who could blame Ted(Carol's husband) for taking advantage of such an asking-to-be-exploited patsy?" Joanna's passion springs from wanting a better life for herself first, then others.
I find that often times in life as in Stepford, when you want more for yourself- you give other people the permission to do the same as well. People are often not very sympathetic to prejudice(whether it is from family members because of your sex , at work or in school. . .) they see it as a right of passage(if you will) . Because they have gone through the same situation in the past, if you attempt to stand up for yourself, you are met with fiery attacks akin to a mob rush in a riot. Their reasoning is that who do you think you are to go against the grain? You think you are better than me who had the same experience and endured it? What if society( and I know lots of people already do this) decides to adopt the because I had that experience attitude, if I can help it no one else will have to suffer that manner of prejudice.
Another closely related theme is Walter's role in saga. One wonders what inspired his decision to move to Stepford. Did Joanna suddenly change from what she was when he married her or did his insecurities and greed get the best of him? One of the most terrifying things about getting married is wondering if the person you fell in love with will change.... But the most terrifying of all horror scenarios is them changing you. In very many ways, You are all you have and when you don't even have you- what a tragic tragic existence. Often the people who love us or claim to love us the most are the ones who hold us back from our dreams perhaps because of the need that we satisfy for their egos like in the case of Walter.
We live in a society where mainstream ideas are glorified, while ideas that deviate from the norm are antagonized and shut down by insecure people. It is almost as if you have to be a watered down version of yourself to survive in this world. People do not value truth and religion might as well be rechristened "convenient theories for {insert name}." In other words its like this quote goes "When an honest man discovers he is mistaken, he will either cease being mistaken, or cease being honest." Unfortunately, in some cases it seems that egos transcend integrity.
In conclusion, the road to mediocrity is a very wide path. Mark Twain says it best with this quote "Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect." Joanna was starting to think she was crazy even though she knew she wasn't. And Walter did not help matters by constantly calling her irrational, delusional or delirious when he knew that all her concerns were valid. Even the therapist Joanna winds up speaking to dismisses her concerns as bogus. Our instincts as humans are almost always right. If Joanna had acted more swiftly concerning this matter she might have dodged the bullet altogether. The fact that you stand alone on an issue does not mean you are wrong. In the words of Steve Jobs , "Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."

The Stepford Wives / 9780062037602

"The Stepford Wives" is one of those rare horror novels that reads even more creepily when you already know the twist at the end. I read it when I was younger and merely liked it; now that I'm older and re-reading it, I find it absolutely terrifying.

The most terrifying thing about the Stepford men isn't that they objectify their wives into sex-slaves and cleaning-bots; no, the most terrifying thing about the Stepford men is that they don't *seem* like the kind of men who would do that sort of thing. They don't seem overly boorish or loutish or medieval in their thinking; the men help with the housework and give lip service to equality with their protestations that they intend to "change from the inside" the men-only Men's Association. Terrifying, too, is the fact that these men weren't somehow brought up believing that turning their wives into automatons is the right way to live; the Men's Association has been around for a mere six or seven years, and in that short time *every* man in Stepford has signed on to the barbaric replacement of their human wives with mindless servants. Not a single man in Stepford has refrained from turning his wife into an unthinking sex-bot, and based on Joanna's newspaper findings we cannot soothe ourselves with the thought that perhaps the more principled men moved away with their families.

The men of Stepford are men who are sexist, but seem on the surface not to be. Joanna sits in on a meeting and at first enjoys the flow of the conversation, feeling she has struck a blow for women's equality; it is only when the men start treating her like an object (expecting her to wait on them, and drawing her as an object in the midst of their deliberations) that she starts to feel genuinely uncomfortable in their presence. When Joanna starts objecting to living in Stepford and fearing for her safety, her husband responds kindly and sensibly -- they will move, if that is what she wants, just as soon as the school year ends. This kind response lulls Joanna into dangerous complacency; because she believes her husband does care about her as an equal, she is willing to let precious time slip away, not realizing that her husband's reassurances are completely false.

"The Stepford Wives" is a true horror story as it counts down inexorably to the end; it's impossible not to feel Joanna's heart-pounding terror as she tries to flee the town (an attempt that resonates all too well after having read Jessop's "Escape" earlier in the year). If there is a moral here, then perhaps it is that prejudices can be easily hidden and can arise from the most unlikely among us -- and that even the most liberated can be tempted to hurt and objectify another, when given the chance.

~ Ana Mardoll

Joanna Eberhart with her husband and two children moves from NYC to the quiet suburb of Stepford in CT. She thinks it's what she wants but she quickly discovers Stepford is TOO quiet. All the housewives there seem obsessed by housework and do anything for their husbands. Joanna knows something is wrong but she's not sure what. Could the creepy Mens Association have anything to do with this.

VERY quick (my copy is only 190 pages), easy to read and thoroughly enjoyable thriller. Some people seem to think this book is anti-female but that's ridiculous. The book is clearly on the side of Joanna and her friend Bobbie as they try to unravel the mystery. The ultimate resolution is more than a little silly (and thoroughly unbelievable) but this is so well-written you won't mind. This was made into an excellent 1975 movie which is very faithful to the book. Ignore the "comedic" 2004 version.

Ira Levin's "The Stepford Wives" is already one classic of the feminism --or the chauvinism, depending on where you come from. Written in the early 70s the novel was published when all the feminist movement --and the sexual revolution-- was still fresh, so that it allowed a reading that nowadays is a little dated, nevertheless important.

As some have pointed, the book's strength is not the language, but the ideas. Sure it is a quick read. Levin is not worried with the creating of crafted sentences, or using difficult and obscure words --his style is very straight. The major point in "The Stepford Wives" is the story indeed: battle of genders.

The concept of women against men is as old as the mankind, but never has it taken such a dark and creepy bend in the road. In the town of Stepford everything seems to be perfect --as if perfection is a plausible thing. Women are housewives who adore their working husbands. Joanna Eberhart and her family have just moved. Like some women of her time, she wants to have a job, and also tackle her family. Little does she know that such thing is not possible in that place. With a new friend, the spirited Bobbie, she will discover that living in Stepford is not the best place in the world.

Playing with sci-fi and the absurdity, Levin wrote a work that is timeless. He has taken the battle of the sexes one step further. It is impossible not to laugh at some point, and be desperate at others. His plot is a metaphor with a naturalistic approach --this is hard device for a writer, but he can manage that very well. At some point --mostly in the first part of the novel --not much happens. There are pages describing Joanna's day, which, by the way, happen to be very boring. And the writer has a point with that.

For this novel, Levin should be nominated as the undisputable king of the subtleness. Different from many contemporary writers, he creates the mood without giving too much --in this point he is precise. We always have the feeling that we should know a little more --but he leaves much room for the imagination, and it is great. Maybe one of the best disciples of Levin is Stephen King --not all the time, but he has learned a few tricks with the master.

As I aforementioned, this is a quick book, and won't take more than two or three sittings to read, but its effect is everlasting. Just like in "Rosemary's Baby" it is impossible to be tell with precision what is really happening and what is the paranoia. Maybe everything is happening inside the protagonists' head --or not. And this is the creepiest aspect of his novels.

The battle of the sexes and the portrait of time --plus its entertaining aspect-- make of "The Stepford Wives" a timeless book. For further enjoyment I suggest the original movie, the one staring Katherine Ross and Paula Prentiss.

The other day I saw a commercial for a nationally recognized brand of laundry detergent. The housewife is busy doing all the things that "good housewives" do: cleaning up after the kids, doing the housework, while her husband is sound asleep in the backyard on the hammock.

She never frowns; even when she looks out the window and sees her husband sleeping instead of mowing, she has this smile on her face that looks like someone who has seen God.

Suddenly the camera cuts to the housewife in the laundry room. The commercial's announcer tells about how clean and soft and fresh smelling the laundry is after using their product, at the same time you should have seen the look on this woman's face.

She looked to be in total ecstasy doing the laundry. Her face is beaming; she is hugging the laundry with a big grin on her face. She looked like she was on cloud nine.

And I am sitting there thinking to myself, Are there really women in this world who act like this while doing housework?

The fictional town of Stepford, CT is such a place. It is a town that only women like Carol Brady, June Cleaver, and Harriet Nelson would be proud of. Oh yeah, and the detergent lady, too.

The world of Stepford is perfect. Busy housewives who live only to cook and clean house. Husbands who labor hard at the office by day, and in the evenings they retreat to the local men's club for some fraternizing with the other members.

While all this may sound really good, there seems to be something sinister going on behind the scenes of the mysterious men's club...or, is there anything happening at all?

One by one, the new residents of Stepford are transformed in a pretty predictable pattern. Shortly after they move in to town, the husband joins the men's club. Meanwhile, the wife is baffled as to why the other women in the community stay at home all the time and do housework and never go out. After a few months the husband and wife take off for a romantic weekend getaway. Finally, shortly after they arrive back home the wife turns into the robot-like housewife like the other Stepford wives.

The central character of the novel, Joanna Eberhardt, is bound and determined that this will not happen to her. She has to search for the reason behind the bizarre behavior of the women and find out what is behind the transformation...before she becomes Stepford's newest "domestic diva".

This is a thought provoking, tautly written novella. A gem of suspense, it was first published in the early nineteen seventies and went on to become a popular movie of the same name, starring Katherine Ross. There is now a remake of the film version, starring Nicole Kidman in the lead role with Bette Midler in a supporting role and Christopher Walken as head of the sinister Men's Association described in the book. So, interest is now renewed in this very readable book, which, despite its simplicity and brevity, is a thinly disguised social commentary on the reaction of men to the early women's liberation movement.

The story is very simple but gripping and well written in clear, straightforward prose. Joanna Eberhart moves to the seemingly bucolic town of Stepford with her husband, Walter, and two children, leaving behind the dangers of big city living. An independent, assertive, intelligent, and creative woman, Joanna epitomizes the newly liberated women of the nineteen seventies. Looking for like souls with whom to become friends, she seeks out some of the other married women of the town, only to find that they are all uniformly addicted to housework, give their husbands complete obeisance, are made up to the gills, and have figures courtesy of maidenform.

Joanna manages to find several like-minded women such as her. Yet, when they, too, become addicted to housework after having a romantic weekend alone with their respective husbands, Joanna becomes convinced that the town's Men's Association has hatched a nefarious plot to change all the wives of Stepford into submissive Barbie dolls. Will Joanna manage to escape the fate of the rest of the Stepford wives? Read the book and find out. You will not be disappointed.

Joanna and Walter look forward to building a new life for themselves and their two children in the picture-book perfect town of Stepford. This is the town where everyone is friendly, all of the women are beautiful and the men the kind who cordially take themselves off to a men's only club every night to leave their good women to indulge themselves in a little superfluous house cleaning. It takes Joanna only a short while to decide that these domestic goddesses couldn't possibly be entirely happy with their lot. Indeed, it was entirely unnatural it is for a modern woman of the sixties to be so concerned about the state about her waxed floors.

Her new friend in the town, Bobbie, agrees with Joanna's observations and the two decide to take action. The men's club must be changed from within, so Walter bravely sallies forth to do just that. The two women tackle the local house wives, flummoxed that their friendly and helpful overtures to begin a women's group are rejected so soundly in favour of the glamour of toilet cleaning and floor mopping. When Bobbie changes overnight into a somewhat robotic wife just like the rest of the women of Stepford, Joanna is certain that her time will come. Who will be converting her, and when will it happen? She must escape.

This classic short suspense novel has earnt its place in pop culture; how many times have you heard someone say "sheesh, it's like living in Stepford" or "well, she's definitely a Stepford wife, put it that way"? Most of the horror is of the slowly dawning variety and skillfully done so that the worst of it is left up to your own grubby little imagination. The story is a little dated with its references of the times and quite different from the movie re-makes, particularly the second if you've caught that one this year. Don't hang yourself up on the little inaccuracies - what you take away from this one depends on the kind of person you are and your own beliefs and so it is easy to see how this novel stirred up so much dinner party conversation upon its release in the 1970's. Consider it one of those books that you really MUST read if you haven't done so already and add this short and snazzy little number to your own little literary repertoire.

Author Ira Levin also wrote the best selling novels "The Boys from Brazil", "Rosemary's Baby" and "A Kiss before Dying".

I've previously seen both movie versions of The Stepford Wives and enjoyed them. I was excited to see how the book differed, and more importantly, what was left out of the movie. Turns out, the movies are very closely related to the book, as the book is very, very short. It's longer than a short story, but not quite novella length. It seems like the movies may have explained things a little more clearly and in depth than the book did.

There was absolutely nothing in The Stepford Wives that was shocking. I had expected much more, but if you know the basic story, you know everything. The story is phenomenal and an absolute marvel for it's time. I would have rated it a 5, but honestly, it isn't necessary to read. It's enjoyable, sure, but most everyone knows the story. Nothing new is gained or experienced by reading the book.

If you've managed to avoid hearing about The Stepford Wives, I would recommend running out and reading this book immediately. If, like me, you've known the story for as long as you can remember, I say read it, but know you're not going to come across anything truly exciting.The Stepford Wives was a wonderful story at its time and continues to have a huge impact with its forward thinking message.

This is a thought provoking, tautly written novella. A gem of suspense, it was first published in the early nineteen seventies and went on to become a popular movie of the same name, starring Katherine Ross. There is now a remake of the film version, starring Nicole Kidman in the lead role with Bette Midler in a supporting role and Christopher Walken as head of the sinister Men's Association described in the book. So, interest is now renewed in this very readable book, which, despite its simplicity and brevity, is a thinly disguised social commentary on the reaction of men to the early women's liberation movement.

The story is very simple but gripping and well written in clear, straightforward prose. Joanna Eberhart moves to the seemingly bucolic town of Stepford with her husband, Walter, and two children, leaving behind the dangers of big city living. An independent, assertive, intelligent, and creative woman, Joanna epitomizes the newly liberated women of the nineteen seventies. Looking for like souls with whom to become friends, she seeks out some of the other married women of the town, only to find that they are all uniformly addicted to housework, give their husbands complete obeisance, are made up to the gills, and have figures courtesy of maidenform.

Joanna manages to find several like-minded women such as her. Yet, when they, too, become addicted to housework after having a romantic weekend alone with their respective husbands, Joanna becomes convinced that the town's Men's Association has hatched a nefarious plot to change all the wives of Stepford into submissive Barbie dolls. Will Joanna manage to escape the fate of the rest of the Stepford wives? Read the book and find out. You will not be disappointed.

With the remake of the film, there is a corresponding re-release of the novel. I have always liked the original movie and have finally picked up the book. This edition (mass market) has chanded the Introduction into an Afterward.
The book is thin and the plot is simple. Joanna and her family have just moved to the town of Stepford. The town is ruled by the Men's Club, a men-only organization that seems to be into everything. The women are all happy homemakers.
Joanna, and her husband Walter, are all for women's liberation but they seem to have moved to a town as far removed from women's liberation as you can get. Walter is planning to join the Men's Club and try and change it from the inside. Joanna is going to try and get the other women in town interested in more than being housewives.
But Joanna only finds two other women willing to listen to her. The rest are all too busy with housework and waiting on their husbands. But then one of the two changes ans is suddenly super-housewife and has given up anything that does not help her husband. Joanna and her last friend decide that something must be wrong with the town (i.e. toxic waste) that affects the women. In the end Joanna discovers the truth about the town and tries to get away.
Joanna may have discovered the truth, but it is only hinted at in the book. The reader will have to draw their own conclusion as to what really goes on in the town.
The story is fast and wraps around an interesting concept. Unfortunately the writing and "facts" included in the story leave much to be desired. The prose can be strangely and inaccurately descriptive (i.e. purpling breasts during a shower) and the details of Joanna's photography career bear little resemblance to reality. Still, despite glaring errors and bad writing, the story does move well and is entertaining (although I think the errors might have been unbearable in a longer book). If you have enjoyed the original film you will probably want to check this one out.

This is a thought provoking, tautly written novella. A gem of suspense, it was first published in the early nineteen seventies and went on to become a popular movie of the same name, starring Katherine Ross. There is now a remake of the film version, starring Nicole Kidman in the lead role with Bette Midler in a supporting role and Christopher Walken as head of the sinister Men's Association described in the book. So, interest is now renewed in this very readable book, which, despite its simplicity and brevity, is a thinly disguised social commentary on the reaction of men to the early women's liberation movement.

The story is very simple but gripping and well written in clear, straightforward prose. Joanna Eberhart moves to the seemingly bucolic town of Stepford with her husband, Walter, and two children, leaving behind the dangers of big city living. An independent, assertive, intelligent, and creative woman, Joanna epitomizes the newly liberated women of the nineteen seventies. Looking for like souls with whom to become friends, she seeks out some of the other married women of the town, only to find that they are all uniformly addicted to housework, give their husbands complete obeisance, are made up to the gills, and have figures courtesy of maidenform.

Joanna manages to find several like-minded women such as her. Yet, when they, too, become addicted to housework after having a romantic weekend alone with their respective husbands, Joanna becomes convinced that the town's Men's Association has hatched a nefarious plot to change all the wives of Stepford into submissive Barbie dolls. Will Joanna manage to escape the fate of the rest of the Stepford wives? Read the book and find out. You will not be disappointed.

This is a thought provoking, tautly written novella. A gem of suspense, it was first published in the early nineteen seventies and went on to become a popular movie of the same name, starring Katherine Ross. It was also a recent remake, starring Nicole Kidman.

The story is very simple but gripping and well written. Joanna Eberhart moves to the seemingly bucolic town of Stepford with her husband, Walter, and two children, leaving behind the dangers of big city living. An independent, assertive, intelligent, and creative woman, Joanna epitomizes the newly liberated women of the nineteen seventies. Looking for like souls with whom to become friends, she seeks out some of the other married women of the town, only to find that they are all uniformly addicted to housework, give their husbands complete obeisance, are made up to the gills, and have figures courtesy of maidenform.

Joanna manages to find several like minded women such as herself. Yet, when they, too, become addicted to housework after having a romantic weekend alone with their respective husbands, Joanna becomes convinced that the town's Men's Association has hatched a sinister plot to change all the wives of Stepford into submissive Barbie dolls. Will Joanna manage to escape the fate of the rest of the Stepford wives? Read the book and find out. You will not be disappointed.

With the remake of the film, there is a corresponding re-release of the novel. I have always liked the original movie and have finally picked up the book. This edition (mass market) has chanded the Introduction into an Afterward.
The book is thin and the plot is simple. Joanna and her family have just moved to the town of Stepford. The town is ruled by the Men's Club, a men-only organization that seems to be into everything. The women are all happy homemakers.
Joanna, and her husband Walter, are all for women's liberation but they seem to have moved to a town as far removed from women's liberation as you can get. Walter is planning to join the Men's Club and try and change it from the inside. Joanna is going to try and get the other women in town interested in more than being housewives.
But Joanna only finds two other women willing to listen to her. The rest are all too busy with housework and waiting on their husbands. But then one of the two changes ans is suddenly super-housewife and has given up anything that does not help her husband. Joanna and her last friend decide that something must be wrong with the town (i.e. toxic waste) that affects the women. In the end Joanna discovers the truth about the town and tries to get away.
Joanna may have discovered the truth, but it is only hinted at in the book. The reader will have to draw their own conclusion as to what really goes on in the town.
The story is fast and wraps around an interesting concept. Unfortunately the writing and "facts" included in the story leave much to be desired. The prose can be strangely and inaccurately descriptive (i.e. purpling breasts during a shower) and the details of Joanna's photography career bear little resemblance to reality. Still, despite glaring errors and bad writing, the story does move well and is entertaining (although I think the errors might have been unbearable in a longer book). If you have enjoyed the original film you will probably want to check this one out.

This is a thought provoking, tautly written novella. A gem of suspense, it was first published in the early nineteen seventies and went on to become a popular movie of the same name, starring Katherine Ross. It was also a recent remake, starring Nicole Kidman.

The story is very simple but gripping and well written. Joanna Eberhart moves to the seemingly bucolic town of Stepford with her husband, Walter, and two children, leaving behind the dangers of big city living. An independent, assertive, intelligent, and creative woman, Joanna epitomizes the newly liberated women of the nineteen seventies. Looking for like souls with whom to become friends, she seeks out some of the other married women of the town, only to find that they are all uniformly addicted to housework, give their husbands complete obeisance, are made up to the gills, and have figures courtesy of maidenform.

Joanna manages to find several like minded women such as herself. Yet, when they, too, become addicted to housework after having a romantic weekend alone with their respective husbands, Joanna becomes convinced that the town's Men's Association has hatched a sinister plot to change all the wives of Stepford into submissive Barbie dolls. Will Joanna manage to escape the fate of the rest of the Stepford wives? Read the book and find out. You will not be disappointed.

Joanna and her husband Walter think life in Stepford will be fabulous. The school system is great for their two young children, the neighborhood is nice, and they are thrilled to be getting out of the crowded and dirty city. Once they move in, though, Joanna finds herself mildly unhappy. She is a progressive woman who has hobbies and outside interests, and she would like to find outgoing women friends who share her passions. Instead, she finds a bunch of women who seem content to stay at home and do hours of housework every day.

Finally Joanna meets a couple of other women in town who are much like she is. They decide it isn't fair there is a men's social club in town but no women's organization, so they decide to start one. None of the women with whom they speak seem interested or seem to have the time, though. Joanna and her friends are willing to believe that these other women are just different from them, but then Joanna comes across an old newspaper article about activities of a women's club in town--and some of the women with whom she spoke were active members of the club.

Could there be something in the environment of the town that changes women from interesting human beings into passive housework machines, concerned only about catering to their husbands? Will Joanna figure out what is going on before she, too, is changed forever?

This book totally creeped me out, and I kept waiting for a happy ending. I liked that there wasn't one, that Levin didn't take the easy way out in resolving this story.

This is a thought provoking, tautly written novella. A gem of suspense, it was first published in the early nineteen seventies and went on to become a popular movie of the same name, starring Katherine Ross. It was also a recent remake, starring Nicole Kidman.

The story is very simple but gripping and well written. Joanna Eberhart moves to the seemingly bucolic town of Stepford with her husband, Walter, and two children, leaving behind the dangers of big city living. An independent, assertive, intelligent, and creative woman, Joanna epitomizes the newly liberated women of the nineteen seventies. Looking for like souls with whom to become friends, she seeks out some of the other married women of the town, only to find that they are all uniformly addicted to housework, give their husbands complete obeisance, are made up to the gills, and have figures courtesy of maidenform.

Joanna manages to find several like minded women such as herself. Yet, when they, too, become addicted to housework after having a romantic weekend alone with their respective husbands, Joanna becomes convinced that the town's Men's Association has hatched a sinister plot to change all the wives of Stepford into submissive Barbie dolls. Will Joanna manage to escape the fate of the rest of the Stepford wives? Read the book and find out. You will not be disappointed.

This is a thought provoking, tautly written novella. A gem of suspense, it was first published in the early nineteen seventies and went on to become a popular movie of the same name, starring Katherine Ross. It was also a recent remake, starring Nicole Kidman.

The story is very simple but gripping and well written. Joanna Eberhart moves to the seemingly bucolic town of Stepford with her husband, Walter, and two children, leaving behind the dangers of big city living. An independent, assertive, intelligent, and creative woman, Joanna epitomizes the newly liberated women of the nineteen seventies. Looking for like souls with whom to become friends, she seeks out some of the other married women of the town, only to find that they are all uniformly addicted to housework, give their husbands complete obeisance, are made up to the gills, and have figures courtesy of maidenform.

Joanna manages to find several like minded women such as herself. Yet, when they, too, become addicted to housework after having a romantic weekend alone with their respective husbands, Joanna becomes convinced that the town's Men's Association has hatched a sinister plot to change all the wives of Stepford into submissive Barbie dolls. Will Joanna manage to escape the fate of the rest of the Stepford wives? Read the book and find out. You will not be disappointed.

This is a thought provoking, tautly written novella. A gem of suspense, it was first published in the early nineteen seventies and went on to become a popular movie of the same name, starring Katherine Ross. It was also a recent remake, starring Nicole Kidman.

The story is very simple but gripping and well written. Joanna Eberhart moves to the seemingly bucolic town of Stepford with her husband, Walter, and two children, leaving behind the dangers of big city living. An independent, assertive, intelligent, and creative woman, Joanna epitomizes the newly liberated women of the nineteen seventies. Looking for like souls with whom to become friends, she seeks out some of the other married women of the town, only to find that they are all uniformly addicted to housework, give their husbands complete obeisance, are made up to the gills, and have figures courtesy of maidenform.

Joanna manages to find several like minded women such as herself. Yet, when they, too, become addicted to housework after having a romantic weekend alone with their respective husbands, Joanna becomes convinced that the town's Men's Association has hatched a sinister plot to change all the wives of Stepford into submissive Barbie dolls. Will Joanna manage to escape the fate of the rest of the Stepford wives? Read the book and find out. You will not be disappointed.

This is a thought provoking, tautly written novella. A gem of suspense, it was first published in the early nineteen seventies and went on to become a popular movie of the same name, starring Katherine Ross. It was also a recent remake, starring Nicole Kidman.

The story is very simple but gripping and well written. Joanna Eberhart moves to the seemingly bucolic town of Stepford with her husband, Walter, and two children, leaving behind the dangers of big city living. An independent, assertive, intelligent, and creative woman, Joanna epitomizes the newly liberated women of the nineteen seventies. Looking for like souls with whom to become friends, she seeks out some of the other married women of the town, only to find that they are all uniformly addicted to housework, give their husbands complete obeisance, are made up to the gills, and have figures courtesy of maidenform.

Joanna manages to find several like minded women such as herself. Yet, when they, too, become addicted to housework after having a romantic weekend alone with their respective husbands, Joanna becomes convinced that the town's Men's Association has hatched a sinister plot to change all the wives of Stepford into submissive Barbie dolls. Will Joanna manage to escape the fate of the rest of the Stepford wives? Read the book and find out. You will not be disappointed.

This is a thought provoking, tautly written novella. A gem of suspense, it was first published in the early nineteen seventies and went on to become a popular movie of the same name, starring Katherine Ross. It was also a recent remake, starring Nicole Kidman.

The story is very simple but gripping and well written. Joanna Eberhart moves to the seemingly bucolic town of Stepford with her husband, Walter, and two children, leaving behind the dangers of big city living. An independent, assertive, intelligent, and creative woman, Joanna epitomizes the newly liberated women of the nineteen seventies. Looking for like souls with whom to become friends, she seeks out some of the other married women of the town, only to find that they are all uniformly addicted to housework, give their husbands complete obeisance, are made up to the gills, and have figures courtesy of maidenform.

Joanna manages to find several like minded women such as herself. Yet, when they, too, become addicted to housework after having a romantic weekend alone with their respective husbands, Joanna becomes convinced that the town's Men's Association has hatched a sinister plot to change all the wives of Stepford into submissive Barbie dolls. Will Joanna manage to escape the fate of the rest of the Stepford wives? Read the book and find out. You will not be disappointed.

Nathaniel Hawthorne, when explaining why he wrote supernatural stories, said that he was in love with analogy. Great dark supernatural fiction (like Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown" and, here, "The Stepford Wives") deals with fears and dangers that we hardly understand, maybe don't even want to acknowledge, yet feel the need to grapple with on an analogical level.
"The Stepford Wives" is a classic for this reason (and because it's a well-written, very scary story). The antagonism husbands and wives feel toward each other, often unconsciously, because of the inherent difficulties in running the three-legged race that is marriage, was hard enough to cope with before Feminism came along. Now, women have greater personal freedom and feel less resentment toward men (perhaps). But how about the way men feel?
Writing about the contemporary social scene must be very difficult. Ira Levin here found the perfect plot to sketch the current battleline in the War between Men and Women. (Although, of course, the modern solution most frequently resorted to is, in reality, divorce, which is actually no solution at all, but a starting over, a re-throwing of the dice.)
Unlike the other reviews below, I thought the ending was subtle, horrible, perfect. I think fans of supernatural fiction (I hesitate to call it horror because of the connotation that word carries of explicit blood and gore, and there's very little of that in "The Stepford Wives") will be reading this book a hundred years from now.

This is a well-written horror story about what happens when men completely take over -and this is putting it mildly as you will see when you read the book or see the film- a wealthy, suburban American town in the 1970s.

I had seen the 1975 film as well as the more recent remake and finally read the book upon which these productions were based.

Ira Levin is a highly gifted writer in the horror genre because he understands far more than meets the eye; he tackles with aplomb and originality that which lies below the surface, at any moment threatening to take over our reality, in seemingly normal and stable suburban life.

Perhaps even more amazing is Levin's ability to write entirely from the point-of-view of the heroines in his frightening and fascinating tales--Rosemary's Baby included.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who is at all intrigued by the false sense of normalcy in suburban life and who is open to the very real possibility that women are not as safe in their suburban communities as they think, and that their actual foes may be closer than they appear in the rose-colored mirrors of their suburban bedrooms.

This fast-reading mystery satirizes posh suburbia and its picture-perfect families. Joanna Eberhart is a creative, photographer-housewife who moves to Stepford from New York City at the urging of her lawyer-spouse Walter. It's easy to see why people might chose Stepford; good schools for their kids, green lawns, and commuter trains to downtown make it seem like the perfect community. But Joanne notices that many of Stepford's trophy wives are mere Barbie dolls obsessed with serving their husbands. They weren't always such housefraus she eventually discovers, before their husbands joined the Men's Association. Concern turns to alarm when one of Joanne's liberated friends turns into another plastic Barbie. Now Joanne suspects her husband and community. Does a similar fate await her, or is she simply turning paranoid?

Author Ira levin satirizes upper-crust suburbia with stunning effectiveness in these gripping, readable pages. The mystery is worth a look, despite its brevity. So was the original (1975) film version starring Katherine Ross.

I finished this book at one sitting. It was definitely a page-turner, with a lot of amusing/awakening observations on the life of American suburban 'hausfraus'. At first I assumed it to be a recent book, first published probably in the 90s, and the reference early in the book to Women's Lib, forming a NOW chapter in the town, having Betty Friedan as a speaker in a women's gathering, etc. seemed out of time and place. Later, I checked the book information page, and finding out that it was originally published in 1972, I could see how it can be read as a book on male paranoia about feminism that'd begun having visible impact back then.
Reading this as a story about how to kill your wife and justify the act is but one of several possible readings, though. Even after the 'unhappy' ending where our heroine goes through the same horrible fate as the other women in Stepford did, it is difficult to say whether the message is "Women, be docile!" or "Look, men can be so wicked." It all depends on how you look at it. It can be a satire on feminism. Or, it can be a satire on male resistance to it. At any rate, it is a book that rarely stops engaging the reader.

Ira Levin is, hands down, the best suspense thriller author out there. His novels are quick affairs that are fun to read but leave you thinking once it's all over. Like no other, Levin can make an impossible situation seem entirely within the realm of possibility. Robot housewives? Satanic babies? Hitler clones?His career covers it all, and in circumstances just real enough to make you wonder if it could happen to you. "The Stepford Wives" came out in a decade when feminism was taking hold of the nation and making the future of gender roles uncertain. Would women leave the home forever -- taking jobs away from men who feel entitled to them and forcing them to cook and wash their own laundry? Not if the men of Stepford, Connecticut can help it. Through the desperate, brutal actions of the Stepford Men's Association Levin makes bold statements about how women had been chained to their home lives and made to sacrifice their own desires and their very humanity for the sake of their family. The true success of Levin's chilling parable is how timeless it has proven to be. Sure, specific details have become dated since the 1972 publication date, but the message is still on target -- just look to the tabloid-infused botox-ification of society that occurs today for proof. "The Stepford Wives" is a great summer read for the beach, vacations, or rainy days when you're stuck indoors. Like "The DaVinci Code," it has intelligence woven into its pot-boiler outline -- but fortunately it has better writing to back it up. It's a guilty pleasure that isn't so guilty after all.

As an aside: "Rosemary's Baby" and "The Stepford Wives" (Levin's most famous works) suffer some from the fact that by now most people know what happens in the end, but don't let that deter you. The joy of getting there will still carry you through nicely; the fun is no longer in the surprise twist but in picking up on the clues that get you there (think of it as seeing "The Sixth Sense" knowing that Bruce Willis is dead and still appreciating the movie for the craftmanship that hid it from original audiences).

The Stepford Wives is a masterpiece, a brilliant and chilling satire on the feminist movement, that not only manages to entertain, but provides enough material for deep discussion. It's a quick, effortless read, marvelously plotted, and full of page-turning, as opposed to nail-biting, suspense. Ira Levin has created a pop-culture phenomenon, and the title has etched its way into our vocabulary, and for good reason. The Stepford Wives is truly a memorable book; shocking and original.
This book is at times hilarious, and at times extremely disturbing, especially the ending. Levin leaves a lot of the secrets unsolved, allowing our imagination to run wild trying to interpret what has actually happened and is actually happening. He never goes into detail, making everything seem all the scarier. This book is a must-read for anyone. It is truly one of the best books ever written and highly recommended.
My only complaint is that it was too short. I would have loved to spend more time with these 'perfect' women. Give the women of Stepford a chance, you might thank yourself later.

A quick little read with a really entertaining premise, why do women who live in Stepford become perfect housewives who don't have time to have a personal life because there is always something to clean? Written in an easy to read way without being dumbed down and could easily be read in a couple of hours. I just wish I didn't see the movie before I read the book, knowing what happens really messed this up for me especially because it is such a short book and nothing else is really added to the story. My favorite character has got to be Bobby, she is honest and it was really funny when she started making fun of how her kid looks. I think it's funny that this horror story is a good thing for everyone besides the wife. The little kid put it perfectly when asked if he likes his mommy this way. He said yes, she doesn't yell at me anymore and she makes me breakfast, I hope she never goes away. That made me laugh.

Very few suspense novels achieve historic status, and this 1972 gem is one of them. Short, swift, and genuinely terrifying, it had an impact on the world that still resonates. The phrase, "Stepford wife," is now part of our language, and a certain type of woman will always be described that way. Ira Levin managed to make a profound sociological statement disguised as entertainment, and there aren't many other examples of that in suspense fiction.

There is no substitute for reading this chilling novel, although the solid 1975 film version with Katharine Ross is infinitely better than the ill-advised "comic" remake with Nicole Kidman. To turn Levin's dark, pro-feminist statement into a campy farce was a disservice to him and an insult to women everywhere. Stick with the novel--you'll never forget it, I promise.

This is a thought provoking, tautly written novella. A gem of suspense, it was first published in the early nineteen seventies and went on to become a popular movie of the same name, starring Katherine Ross. There is now a remake of the film version, starring Nicole Kidman in the lead role with Bette Midler in a supporting role and Christopher Walken as head of the sinister Men's Association described in the book. So, interest is now renewed in this very readable book, which, despite its simplicity and brevity, is a thinly disguised social commentary on the reaction of men to the early women's liberation movement.
The story is very simple but gripping and well written in clear, straightforward prose. Joanna Eberhart moves to the seemingly bucolic town of Stepford with her husband, Walter, and two children, leaving behind the dangers of big city living. An independent, assertive, intelligent, and creative woman, Joanna epitomizes the newly liberated women of the nineteen seventies. Looking for like souls with whom to become friends, she seeks out some of the other married women of the town, only to find that they are all uniformly addicted to housework, give their husbands complete obeisance, are made up to the gills, and have figures courtesy of maidenform.
Joanna manages to find several like-minded women such as her. Yet, when they, too, become addicted to housework after having a romantic weekend alone with their respective husbands, Joanna becomes convinced that the town's Men's Association has hatched a nefarious plot to change all the wives of Stepford into submissive Barbie dolls. Will Joanna manage to escape the fate of the rest of the Stepford wives? Read the book and find out. You will not be disappointed.

Joanna and her husband Walter and kids leave the hard-hearted city for the pastoral town of Stepford, where everything is just a bit too perfect. Soon enough, Joanna notices that many of her female neighbors-well, they're ditz-city as far as brains go. And they're always perfectly put together. Beautiful and always well dressed with perfect make-up, clothes, etc...
These women also seem to live only to do housework while their husbands gather nightly at a mysterious men's club. As time goes by, it seems more and more women are turning into these robot-like super homemakers. Joanna begins to suspect that she's next. Truly suspenseful reading and lots of fun.
Ira Levin is a writer who keeps you turning pages. In the 1960s and 1970s he wrote such classic horror novels as Rosemary's Baby and The Boys from Brazil. This is another classic. It's a fast read and a quick story but it's thought-provoking to be sure.
I saw the remake and don't know what the author thinks of it. It's a very different tone from the original movie, but it has it's own merits. In any event, this is the classic novel on which both movies were based and well worth checking out!

With The Stepford Wives, Ira Levin perhaps defines one particular style of horror or suspense fiction. Taking a normal situation and turning it upside down, eerily so, Levin blazed a trail for authors like Stephen King or Bentley Little. Levin presents readers with the town of Stepford, a remote suburb away from the grind of big-town living. Idyllic, inviting and almost utopian, Levin begins to introduce oddities, imperfections that lead both the protagonist and the reader to conclude that certain things aren't what they seem. And of course, they're not.
After reading The Stepford Wives, I was immediately surprised at how much influence the novel obviously had on some more contemporary horror and suspense authors - Andrew Neiderman's Amnesia and Neighborhood Watch as well as Bentley Little's The Association owe a lot Levin's Stepford.

I loved this book! I ran across it while browsing through a bookstore last week. I was interested in seeing the recently released remake of the 1975 movie (which I had always wanted to see, but never have had the chance) and was surprised to find out the movie was based on a book by Ira Levine (I assumed the original movie was based on an original screenplay). The book started off a little slowly for me, but soon I was absorbed and the pace really picked up. I ended up reading the entire book on the inbound leg of my daily train commute (I had assumed that it would take up both legs, so I had nothing to read on the return). I won't go into the plot (other reviewers have given you their versions), but I was very happy to read a very well written, taut piece of thought provoking fiction after a lot of the pulp fiction (Grisham, Crichton, etc) that I have been reading lately. This is an intelligent thriller whose power rests in its subtlety. Much is left to the readers imagination, which is a relief compared to so many modern thrillers. However, more than a simple thriller, it is a brutally wicked satire, which is why I really enjoyed this book.
The book is a little dated. Unfortunately, I am old enough to remember 1972, but I fear some of the references to 1972 events and icons (for example, Betty Friedman's The Feminine Mystique) may go over many younger readers' heads. I am very curious now to see the movie (and even to rent the DVD of the original). I am particularly curious to how they maintain the subtlety of the book (or if they even try) in the movie version.

After moving with her husband and two young children to the small, rural, picture perfect town of Stepford, thirty-two-year-old Joanna Eberhart soon realizes that something isn't right. Although able to befriend another newcomer, Bobbie Markowe, she is perplexed by the seemingly unfriendly behavior of the majority of the less recent inhabitants, especially the overwhelmingly buxom, beautiful women who complete their hausfrauian duties so contentedly. Their cheerful smiles and polite but distant greetings appear to hide something a bit more sinister. The actions of the men are equally suspicious. Upon taking up residence in Stepford, they immediately join the local men's organization and start acting strangely secretive. Both Joanna and Bobbie notice a transformation in appearance and behavior of the townswomen over time. As the women get closer to the truth, the men take action. The Stepford Wives is a short, spectacular sci fi look at conformity, ingenuity, and the quest for perfection. Also good: The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood.

THE STEPFORD WIVES is a psychological thriller that will keep you guessing until the end. The book is very well paced and will keep you turning pages, until you've turned the last page. Joanna Eberhart moves from a big city to the small village of Stepford with her husband and two kids. She finds the women in this town a little strange, they appear to have no brains and to be soul-less, enjoying the chores of being a housewife and taking care of the kids. She meets Bobbie, to whom she immediately befriends. Bobbie agrees that something isn't up to par. When they move her husband joins the Men's Association. Bobbie and Joanna wonder what happened to the Woman's organization, that disbanded a few years ago. When their friend suddenly turns into one of those women, they start to wonder if there's something in the water or the air that is making these women turn into these housewives with no other aspirations. Bobbie & Joanna decide to try to uproot and move their families. Then Bobbie goes away for a weekend with her husband, and boom she comes back a changed woman as well. Joanna's suspicions are piqued and she heads off to do some research, and finds out a man who once lived in California at Disneyland, who made robots, is the president of the Men's Association. Their initial friend came in July, and four months later, had changed. Bobbie came in August, and a month after their friend, also changed. Joanna knew she was next, and with her proof, she went to her husband and told him she was leaving town with the kids, only to find they were gone! She knew she was next, and escaped, only to be found by the men who tried to convince them that they weren't turning women into robots. They convince her to go to Bobbie's and she will cut herself to prove she's human, and then suddenly, Joanna is one of them. The implications of this is truly astounding and quite frightening. It was a quick read, quite a short book but fast paced.

Weighing in at only 123 pages, The Stepford Wives doesn't take too long to finish. Ira Levin provides only the barest of details in terms of back stories for each character. Yet the novel feels complete. He carries the story to its tragic end, while working in occasional humor.

The Stepford Wives can be read on multiple levels. For me, it shows men at their basest and most depraved in relation to women. However you read it though, you'll find the book to be memorable.

In many ways, Ira Levin is a visionary. His greatest works were written decades ago, yet they are more significant today than ever. The Stepford Wives, while downright spooky, is at the same time a glimpse at the runaway science that makes the concept of humanistic robots seem more plausible every day. In it's day, the novel was viewed as dark and slightly absurd. Today? Who's to say that tidy, smiling woman who lives next door isn't filled with circuitry and microchips instead of blood and bone? One of my all-time favorite books. And written with the cut to the bone conciseness Levin has mastery of. Not a wasted word to be found.
-- Mark LaFlamme, author of "The Pink Room."

I thought this book was entertaining, but it's not worth paying full price for.

First of all, this book is only around 30,000 words long -- less than a third the size of a regular novel. This is more a novella than a full-sized book. I literally read this book in ninety minutes.

Second, I'm guessing that the average reader already knows how this book ends, due to the massive publicity of the movies based on it. This minimizes the suspense value. If you know exactly what is going to happen, then what's the point of wading through a hundred or so pages to get there? It's kind of like hearing a joke when you already know the punch line.

I also found the plot of this book rather silly, which is okay, since this book is plainly a satire. Still, Levin never really explains what really motivates the husbands to take such dramatic measures against their wives. In the end, I'm not entirely clear what the social point of this book is meant to be.

Still, I found this book a short, enteraining read overall. If you've never heard of THE STEPFORD WIVES, I would strongly recommend picking this one up. You'll be shocked by the ending.