Ira Levin -- Reinforcing Fear of the Dark
I discovered Ira Levin when my English teacher put his name on the list of books to read for our exams. Our teacher was a bit fed up with the standard English classics like Shakespeare the Brontė sisters, and wanted to expose us to something different.
I soon learned that if anyone is "different," it is Ira Levin. It is difficult to pin him down; to categorize his work. Yes, he writes thrillers but his books are immensely psychological as well. His characters are right there, staring at you from the pages, giving you the creeps. It is art to write like that, and he has truly mastered the art.
Ira Levin was born in New York in 1929 and all his life he wanted to be a writer. He studied at New York University and had two majors: Philosophy and English. Both fields of study show up clearly in his books. He wrote his first book, A Kiss Before Dying, when he was just 22 years old. It is a very mature book that could easily have been written by someone twice his age, with twice the life experience. What is also striking is that the book was written in the early nineteen-fifties but feels quite contemporary and not dated at all.
It was A Kiss Before Dying that I read first. I was intrigued by the way he narrates from three different perspectives, and with the way he builds tension with this technique. Even after you find out--from one of the perspectives--the identity of the killer, the tension is far from over. The effect is to the contrary, rather, and the suspense increases as you feel you're being chased by the killer.
Next I read The Stepford Wives, an ironic sort of novel. It is said that Ira Levin wrote this as a reaction to the feminists. In Stepford, all the women seem like the traditional male fantasy--they do anything their husbands' desire, especially when it comes to the household chores. Two new couples come to live in Stepford and one of the women finds it really peculiar how the Stepford wives behave. Curiosity drives her to try to figure out what is going on, and she discovers that these "perfect" wives are robots. Even though this book gave me goose bumps, I also found it amusing. After all, you would surely have to be a robot to behave in such a way; no woman of flesh and blood would act like that.
The two books that creeped me out the most are Rosemary's Baby and The Boys from Brazil. I read both of them in the middle of the night, which only heightened the creep factor. Levin created the stuff of nightmares in these books by producing images that seem so real, bringing to light hidden fears and elaborating on what-if scenarios. Even though you know that some things cannot be real, his writing scares you.
In summary, his books are great for long autumn and winter nights when it is dark outside and you can leave the light on inside. And believe me, they will definitely make you leave the light on in the middle of night, just to be sure, just in case.