However, eventually, Bobbie is also transformed into a docile housewife and has no interest in her previous activities.Īt the end of the novel, Joanna decides to flee Stepford, but when she gets home, she finds that her children have been taken.

Her friend Bobbie helps her investigate, going so far as to write to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to inquire about possible toxins in Stepford. She visits the library and researches the pasts of Stepford's wives, discovering that some of the women were once feminist activists and very successful professionals and that the leader of the men's club is a former Disney engineer and others are artists and scientists, capable of creating lifelike robots. Her husband, who seems to be spending more and more time at meetings of the local men's association, mocks her fears.Īs the story progresses, Joanna becomes convinced that the wives of Stepford are being poisoned or brainwashed into submission by the men's club. 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, fellow new arrivals to Stepford, turn into mindless, docile housewives following a romantic weekend. 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. The premise involves the married men of the fictional Fairfield County town of Stepford, Connecticut and their fawning, submissive, impossibly beautiful wives. Wilton is a 'step' from Stamford, a major city lying 15 miles (24 km) away.

In a March 27, 2007, letter to The New York Times, Levin said that he based the town of Stepford on Wilton, Connecticut, where he lived in the 1960s. Scherick was credited posthumously as producer of the 2004 remake. Scherick produced the 1975 version as well as all three of the television sequels.

The book has had two feature film adaptations, both using the same title as the novel: the 1975 version, and the 2004 remake. As her friends slowly transform Joanna realises the horrific truth. The story concerns Joanna Eberhart, a talented photographer, wife and young mother who suspects that something in Stepford's environment is changing the wives from free-thinking, intelligent women into compliant wives dedicated solely to homemaking. The Stepford Wives is a 1972 satirical 'feminist horror' novel by Ira Levin.

The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin