Son of Rosemary

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Son of Rosemary is a 1997 horror novel by Ira Levin, and is the sequel to Rosemary's Baby.

[edit] Plot

The novel begins in November 1999 with Rosemary Woodhouse waking up in a long term care facility after the last member of the coven from the first novel is killed in a car accident. She learns that she has been in a coma since 1973, and the coven cast a spell on her when they found out her plan to take her son with the Devil, Andy, away from them. Rosemary immediately becomes a national sensation after waking up from such a long coma, and it is revealed that Andy was raised in her absence by Minnie and Roman Castevet, and has become the leader of a charitable foundation with a worldwide influence. Rosemary immediately suspects that Andy's foundation has a demonic purpose, but he reassures her that he has fought his evil side, and is trying to do good work.

A secondary plotline in the book is that the foundation has distributed candles worldwide with the intention that they be lit at midnight on New Year's Eve to help usher in the year 2000. Rosemary gradually comes to suspect that all is not right with the candles, but her concerns fall on deaf ears. The candles then play a part in the climax of the book, as Andy's real father returns for a visit, and takes Rosemary with him to Hell.

The book ends with a much discussed twist. After being taken to Hell, Rosemary suddenly wakes up in bed with Guy Woodhouse (who is barely mentioned in the sequel book), and finds that it is 1965 again. The entire first book and nearly all of the sequel are revealed to have been a vivid dream of Rosemary's. Even the Bramford, the apartment where Guy and Rosemary moved to in the first book, was revealed to be a creation of Rosemary's mind after reading Bram Stoker's book, Dracula. Rosemary then receives a call from her friend Hutch (who died from a coven spell in the first book) offering she and Guy a rent free apartment in the Dakota (the model for the Bramford) for a year. Hutch then makes a comment about roastmules, and about the candle lighting, both things that were mentioned in 1999 during the course of the sequel. Rosemary takes this as a warning, as Guy questions why she would want to turn down a chance to live at the Dakota.

[edit] The Anagram

One of the more intriguing aspects of the book is the recurring anagram puzzle ROAST MULES. The letters can be rearranged to make a single English word. In appropriately fiendish style, Levin doesn't give the answer, simply saying that it's a word that most five-year-old children would recognize. It is generally believed that the anagram spells SOMERSAULT or SOULMASTER