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Ira Levin, 1929-2007
November 15, 2007

Looking at an online list of works of the late novelist and playwright Iran Levin, who died of natural causes earlier this week at the age of 78, I was surprised to note that the man had a surprisingly modest output of work. Levin wrote seven novels over a course of four decades and only a handful of plays, but if ever

there was an argument that consistent quality and not quantity should distinguish an oeuvre, then Levin’s body of work sets the standard.

 

Five of Levin’s seven fine novels made into movies—some outstanding, like Rosemary’s Baby (1968) and the first version of The Stepford Wives (1975); some not that great, like Sliver (1993) and the second version of The Stepford Wives (2004); one that was forgettable (1991’s A Kiss Before Dying) and another one that was weird and wild and starred Gregory Peck and Laurence Olivier (1978’s The Boys from Brazil).

 

Of his handful of plays, the most memorable was the deliciously twisted Deathtrap, which ran for some four years on Broadway from 1978 to 1982, and yielded a not-bad movie directed by Sidney Lumet and starring Michael Caine and Christopher Reeve.

 

For my own part, I’m a big fan of Levin’s 1970 novel This Perfect Day, which I read in high school. A exemplary piece of pop fiction from the future-shock thriller days of Seventies sci-fi fiction (a la Logan’s Run, The Terminal Man and so on), This Perfect Day concerns a young man in a future world that’s essentially run by a computer, “Uni,” which keeps the population under control by keeping track of everyone’s location via electronic bracelets and enforcing the monthly injection of a drug to keep everyone sedate and selfless. It’s a fine book that immediately calls to mind such classics as Brave New World and A Clockwork Orange—and it’s high time that it was adapted and turned into a movie! Is anyone out there listening?

Posted by Laurence Lerman on November 15, 2007 | Comments (0)