Anne Heller - Ayn Rand and the World She Made

She wrote to the older woman:Letter to IP, May 17, 1948 (LOAR , p. 216).

She had not enjoyed the flight: The Woman and the Dynamo , p. 312.

would never really work again: The Woman and the Dynamo , p. 322.

The first hint of trouble:Summary of Paterson’s 1948 visit based on BBTBI.

After Ryskind left: TPOAR , p. 203.

The next incident took place:BBTBI.

“[That woman] ought to be kept out of sight”: The Woman and the Dynamo , p. 313.

Rand suspected:“I suspect that [Paterson] really hated The Fountainhead,” Rand once told Barbara Branden, “that she liked certain aspects of it dutifully, or rather that she talked herself into liking it” (BBTBI).

According to Rand’s later account:BBTBI.

She didn’t like the sex:Author interview with NB, May 5, 2004.

was “gone” … was “no good”:BBTBI.

in February 1959:Author interview with Muriel Hall, July 4, 2004.

she also hoped: The Woman and the Dynamo , p. 381.

admitted that she had reservations: The Woman and the Dynamo , p. 382.

He couldn’t imagine:Author interview with NB, May 5, 2004.

Close friends had no idea:It was BB who discovered the friendship between Rand and Paterson while researching TPOAR .

“No one helped me”:AR expanded on this heroic version of herself on The Les Crane Show in the fall of 1964. Asked to give her view of taxation, she erupted, “I had the longest period of struggle [before TF was purchased as a movie]. I was not paid by any big business interests. I had a dreadful period of struggle to reach the day when I could make money. I had to write part time while holding odd jobs and making a living. No one helped me in that period, nor did I at any time or any moment believe that anybody should. I never expected the government or other people to help me with my struggle. I earned what I made. I felt that [taxes on my income were] a monstrous moral injustice with which I had to put up;” Selfishness as a Virtue , audio CD of AR’s appearance on The Les Crane Show .

had as little reality for her:In a famous exchange in TF , Toohey says to Roark, “We’re alone here. Why don’t you tell me what you think of me?” and Roark replies, “But I don’t think of you” (TF , p. 389). Roark’s line came from FO, AR tells us in her introduction to the twenty-fifth-anniversary edition.

“If she didn’t love it”:Author interview with BB, December 16, 2005.

“She was not interested in process”:Author interview with NB, May 5, 2004.

“I have nothing to sell”: WTL , first handwritten draft, dated April 18, 1933 (Ayn Rand Papers, LOC, box 26, folder 2, p. 35). Quoted in EOWTL , pp. 26–27.

opened in July 1949, to moderate box-office success: TF press book, Warner Bros. Press Books, Series 1.4, United Artists Collection, courtesy of the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research.

“Monumental Best-Seller!”: TF press book, Warner Bros. Press Books, Series 1.4, United Artists Collection, courtesy of the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research.

ample books waiting in local bookstores:Internal note dated June 16, 1949, Bobbs-Merrill Collection, courtesy of the Lilly Library.

In three weeks, fifty thousand copies were sold:BBTBI.

“It was the greatest word-of-mouth book”:“A Strange Kind of Simplicity,” p. 8.

By the mid-2000s:Courtesy of the ARI, May 2007.

“metaphysics, morality, politics, economics and sex”:BBTBI. ARI archivist JB notes that AR first described her work this way during an interview with a reporter from the Los Angeles Herald Examiner in mid-1948, during the filming of TF; correspondence with the author, May 14, 2007.

only one had personal meaning:BBTBI.

He was trying to write a novel:Author correspondence with BB, June 24, 2008.

he could summarize:“The Benefits and Hazards,” p. 40.

would like to know more: JD , p. 39; letter to NB, December 2, 1949 (LOAR , p. 461).

he sent another letter: TPOAR , p. 232; JD , p. 40.

ended her letter with a short reading list:She recommended IP’s The God of the Machine and Henry Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson (LOAR , p. 465).

just starting a difficult chapter:When AR received NB’s second letter, in January 1950, she had just begun the chapter called “The Sanction of the Victim” (part 2, chapter 4), in which Francisco d’Anconia speaks at length to Hank Rearden about the purpose and meaning of sex (Ayn Rand Papers, LOC, box 7, folder 6).

asked for his telephone number:Letter to NB, January 13, 1950 (LOAR , pp. 462–65).

phoned the Hollywood apartment:Author interview with EK, December 13, 2008.

interpreted his lack of fear: JD , pp. 40–43.

sensed that she had made a discovery:BBTBI.

His … parents had never fully assimilated: JD , p. 16.

“Oh, foolish child”: JD , p. 44. NB’s other favorite book in his teen years was Romain Rolland’s ten-volume novel Jean-Christophe . AR argued him out of his attachment to the book by calling attention to the author’s sympathy with socialism and by asking, characteristically, “Tell, me, would you want to meet Jean-Christophe in real life?” “No,” NB answered, “but I would want to meet Howard Roark.” Thus in their first meeting NB gave his full allegiance to AR (Ayn Rand, “The Goal of My Writing,” The Objectivist Newsletter , October 1963, p. 37).

things as they might be and ought to be:Again, AR may have picked up Aristotle’s dictum about the difference between history and literature from Albert Jay Nock, who quoted it, both in English and in Greek, in Memoirs of a Superfluous Man. Memoirs appeared in 1943, alongside TF; AR owned a copy of the book and annotated it with margin notes (The Library of Ayn Rand , p. 39). Her first published reference to things as they “might be and ought to be” appeared in 1945, in “To the Readers of The Fountainhead,” LOAR , p. 670.

she was the only Jewish child:Karen Reedstrom, “An Interview with Barbara Branden,” Full Context , October 1992, p. 1.

She liked him and admired him:Author interview with BB, December 16, 2005.

continued to want more: JD , pp. 30–39.

“Ayn Rand is fascinating”: TPOAR , p. 233.

feel appreciated, understood: JD , p. 46.

Rand had given every appearance of liking him, too: JD , p. 45.

phoned on Sunday evening: WIAR , p. 221.

“seemed to be staring right down to the bottom of your soul”:BB to Ron Grossman, “Passions: A Disciple Confronts Ayn Rand’s Power,” Chicago Tribune , September 9, 1986, p. 1.