A NYT panel recently selected this as one of the best books about New York City, and it definitely captures bougie mid-Sixties Manhattan: the cocktail parties, the theater talk, even the setting, a grand old Victorian pile called the Bramford (not quite The Dakota), famous for its sinister residents. When newlyweds Rosemary and Guy Woodhouse move in, they’re willing to overlook the rumors, and they’re quickly drawn into the circle of their strange neighbors, Roman and Minnie Castavets, a relationship that ultimately destroys Rosemary’s dreams, but makes Guy’s come true. It’s fascinating slow-building story of the unraveling of trust in a relationship. Written a few years after Betty Friedan’s ‘The Feminine Mystique’ expressed the discontent of millions of women with the narrow roles assigned to them, this book takes that argument in a horrifying direction: when Rosemary finds out she was impregnated by her husband in what was essentially a rape, she’s disturbed but doesn’t question her marriage. After that, she’s controlled and manipulated by a diabolical cabal, and only begins to makes sense of it all when her friend Hutch dies mysteriously. Meanwhile, Guy’s acting career takes off—“Gotta run now and get famous!” he tells her, after the supposed stillbirth of their baby (223). Rosemary’s baby—and Rosemary herself—are the sacrifices that create Guy’s success, a story that would sounded familiar to many women. A sequel would have been intriguing.