Read Ira Levin’s Rosemary’s Baby.
I found an old copy in a free bin on my stairs last week—it shone out at me from the box like a beacon. See, I had been avoiding seeing the movie since I was 15 (partially because I didn’t want to think of Ruth Gordon as evil, ever, and also because I was one of those skittish children who wouldn’t sleep for weeks following a fright), and then just last week Netflix told me it was time. I denied it. Again. Not ready. Then the book appeared right outside my door the next day: An original 1967 first printing, a whopping 99 cents from Dell, with the blue dye around the page rims. I am actually loving it—Manhattan thrillers are my favorite, because really, how much DO you know about the neighbors you have moved in next to, and they can literally ruin your life from 15 feet away if they have the desire, and old buildings with gargoyles and cornices are the urban version of haunted houses—but still, not to be read alone in an empty room. I am off to call friends who can assure me that I wasn’t secretly implanted with devil spawn while I wasn’t looking.
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