The Stepford Wives

The Stepford Wives is a 1972 satirical "feminist horror" novel by Ira Levin. The story concerns Joanna Eberhart, a talented photographer, wife, and young mother who suspects that something in the town of Stepford is changing the wives from free-thinking, intelligent women into compliant wives dedicated solely to homemaking. As her friends slowly transform, Joanna realizes the horrific truth.

The book has had two feature film adaptations, both using the same title as the novel: the 1975 version and the 2004 remake. Edgar J. Scherick produced the 1975 version as well as all three of the television sequels. Scherick was credited posthumously as producer of the 2004 remake.

The premise involves the married men of the fictional Fairfield County town of Stepford, Connecticut and their fawning, submissive, impossibly beautiful wives. The protagonist is Joanna Eberhart, a talented photographer newly arrived from New York City with her husband and children, eager to start a new life.

As time goes on, she becomes increasingly disturbed by the submissive wives of Stepford who seem to lack free will, especially when she sees her once independent-minded friends (Bobbie, Charmaine), fellow new arrivals to Stepford, turn into mindless, docile housewives, each time beginning after a romantic weekend with their respective husbands. All the women deny anything is wrong. Joanna's own husband, Walter, who seems to be spending more and more time at meetings of the local men's association, mocks her fears.

As the story progresses, Joanna becomes convinced that the wives of Stepford are being poisoned or brainwashed into submission by the men's club. She visits the library and researches the pasts of Stepford's wives, discovering that some of the women were once feminist activists and successful professionals. The leader of the men's club is a former Disney engineer and others are artists and scientists, capable of creating lifelike robots. Her friend Bobbie helps her investigate, going so far as to write to the state department of health to inquire about possible toxins in Stepford. However, eventually, Bobbie is also transformed into a docile housewife after a "romantic getaway" with her husband.

At the end of the novel, Joanna decides to flee Stepford, but when she gets home, she finds that her children have been taken. She asks her husband to let her leave but he takes her car keys. She manages to escape from the house on foot and several of the men's club members track her down. They corner her in the woods, and she accuses them of creating robots out of the town's women. The men deny the accusation and ask Joanna if she would believe them if she saw one of the other women bleed. Joanna agrees and they take her to Bobbie's house. Bobbie's husband and son are upstairs, with loud rock music playing. Bobbie brandishes an unusually large knife at Joanna, who fears that if Bobbie is a robot, the loud music upstairs may be intended to hide her screams as she is stabbed to death. Bobbie beckons Joanna closer, and as she is desperate to believe her friend isn't a robot, she complies.

In the story's epilogue, Joanna has become another Stepford wife gliding through the local supermarket, having given up her career as a photographer because, as she puts it, "housework's enough for me". Ruthanne Hendry (a new resident and the first black woman in Stepford) appears poised to become the next victim.

The Stepford Wives was released on October 13, 1972, published by Random House in the United States. In a letter to The New York Times dated March 27, 2007, Levin said that he based the town of Stepford on Wilton, Connecticut, where he lived in the 1960s. Wilton is a "step" from Stamford, a major city lying 15 miles (24 km) away. Inspired by domestic robots in the 1970 book Future Shock and the presidential animatronics at Disneyland, Levin originally intended the novel to be written as a comedic play.