** spoiler alert ** This odd little horror novel (and the associated movie) probably did more to change people's perception of Satanism than any other mid-20th century source. Although Anton LaVey would later claim to have "assisted" on the set of the film (he didn't), it is far more likely that this book helped him to shape the young Church of Satan after he founded it, and may even have contributed to his proclaiming 1966 to be the "Year One" (Anno Satanas). Either way, the book was beloved by Sixties and Seventies Satanists. Levin had a certain insight, realizing that Satanists would be jus' folks, like your neighbors, and that the leader of the cult would have filing cabinets full of correspondence (like the philately club president he claims to be). Levin leaves a certain amount up to the reader - does Black Magic really work? Are Satanists truly evil or simply a misunderstood religious minority? Is God dead or alive? This moral ambiguity adds to its intellectual enjoyability.

The only other Levin work with which I am familiar is "The Stepford Wives" (which I only know through the movie), and parallels are obvious. Both stories tell of a woman betrayed by her husband's selfish concerns, when he joins with a conspiracy of people who have the power to advance his career. I have always found the "Stepford Wives" takes this theme to an unbelievable extreme, while "Rosemary's Baby" is chillingly convincing. Sure, Guy let's Rosemary get raped by the Devil, but (especially if we assume that the Devil possessed Guy's body to do it), somehow it's believable that a slueless Sixties husband might be able to rationalize that. Rationalizing murdering your wife and replacing her with a pleasure-slave requires a level of misogyny that is hard to attribute to "normal" men, except perhaps by the most extreme feminist. Guy's betrayal, because it is believable, is the more horrifying, in the end, and that is the strength of this novel.