Ayn Rand is best known as the author of the perennially bestselling novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. Altogether, more than 12 million copies of the two novels have been sold in the United States. A passionate advocate of laissez-faire capitalism and individual rights, Rand remains a powerful force in the political perceptions of Americans today. Yet twenty-five years after her death, her readers know little about her life. Now, with Ayn Rand and the World She Made, journalist Anne C. Heller makes an unforgettable contribution to the rousing, renewed debate about Rand.
In celebration of the publication of this biography, Anne C. Heller would like to answer your questions about Ayn Rand’s life, beliefs, relationships, and more. Simply post your question in a comment below. Check back to this post to view the response.
To learn more about Anne C. Heller, her new book, and to watch video footage, click here.
Here is an exchange I had with a reader on Facebook:
Javier Ramirez January 14 at 2:58pm Report:
I tried leaving these comments at the Doble day site but for some reason it wasnt posted. Ill just reprint it here so you can read what I wrote on 1/12,
The book is a great intellectual biography. However the treatment of Murray Rothbard and his involvement with Ayn Rand is of poor quality. You make the unfortunate insinuation that a reason for his plagiarism was that of sexism. On page 300 you state that one possible explanation for his supposed plagiarism was that, “[Rothbard] was reluctant to own up to the influence of a novelist– a woman novelist”. This should not be taken seriously by your readers. You left out an important fact. Rothbard had intended to give a reading of the draft of The Mantle of Science to a Rand group. This, by the way, is how Branden got a copy of it in which he could even make his accusations. Would someone be so bold as to deliver a plagiarized text before those who would be ready to accuse him? It would be stretching credulity to think otherwise. You dismiss the likes of Mises, Schoeck, et al (you refer to them incorrectly as “conservatives”) in their siding with Rothbard “perhaps partly because they disliked Rand’s habit of self promotion…” (301) Could it be also partly because they saw no merit to the accusations? I think that would be the more realistic explanation. They may have been surprised at the notion that someone could claim originality for the ideas she or Barbara Branden were claiming credit for. You have in your bibliography a work by Justin Raimondo who deals with these charges against Rothbard but you don’t show any familiarity with it in your book. A much thorough reading of his older essays and letters reveal knowledge of ideas and concepts before he met Rand or independently of her. Rothbard was a polymath and as a scholar at the William Volker Fund in the 50s he reviewed scores of books and journal articles and came across ideas that had nothing to do with Rand.
It’s been rightly said that if Rand had ever discovered rain was wet she would have claimed originality.
I understand that as the author you have the right to side with the subject of your book. However as an unabashed Rothbardian (full disclosure) I needed to point out the unconvincing nature of your assesment of the Rothbard-Rand controversy.
Anne Conover Heller January 14 at 10:15pm:
Dear Javier,
Thank you for your interesting comment. (I’m going to try to transfer it to the Doubleday site, with your permission.) I can’t respond until next week, when I return home to my files. Files include Rothbard’s paper, “The Mantle of Science,” correspondence between Branden and Rothbard and others, and interviews and essays that mention the incident–all aids to memory. In the meantime, would you let me know how you know about the intended reading in front of the group? Was it mentioned in Enemy of the State?
All best, Anne
Javier Ramirez January 15 at 12:32am Report:
Thanks for the reply. You certainly have my permission to transfer my comments to Doubleday, you’ll have better luck no doubt. As for Rothbard presenting his draft, its been awhile since I’ve read Raimondo’s book, but I know he deals with the whole issue but my memory fails me as to whether he mentions this specific issue of Rothbard presenting his draft, I believe he does but I could be wrong. He does discuss Rothbard’s ideas going back to a time before meeting Rand. Its been several years since I read it and I’ll have to find my copy of it. I know for sure that it was discussed in an article by historian Joseph Stromberg who’s with the Independent Institute and formerly with the Mises Institute. He wrote a piece called “Rand v Rothbard”. It’s a piece by someone with an admittedly pro Rothbardian bias like myself but I trust his analysis for one because in all the controversy I’ve never heard Mr. Branden call him out on it. Maybe I’ve missed it. I believe Stromberg was an acquaintance of Rothbard. Thanks for taking the time in your busy schedule to respond and I look forward to hearing your thoughts when you have access to your files.
Sincerely ,
Javier
Anne Conover Heller January 25 at 11:16am:
Dear Javier,
Thank you for your interesting letter. You’ve challenge me to go back and look at my sources for describing the Rothbard “plagiarism” incident the way I did, and here is what I found:
1. MR’s supposed “sexism”: I have no idea whether Rothbard was sexist or even, exactly, what that might mean. In the passage you cited I meant to indicate that the world of academic philosophy into which Rothbard was moving was hostile to vociferous female philosophers-cum-popular novelists, not that Rothbard shared that view. (He didn’t.) On the other hand, I attached a general point–that Rand was a figure of ridicule in parts of the academy–to an episode involving Rothbard: a mistake.
2. I hadn’t heard before of the planned reading of “The Mantle of Science” in front of Rand’s circle of followers. I can’t find the Stroberg piece but would like to see it. That said, the people I interviewed who were involved in the episode didn’t mention it. Neither does Justin Raimondo in his biography of Rothbard, “Enemy of the State.” (His review in January “Chronicles” doesn’t bring it up, though he takes issue with other aspects of my book.) And the best direct description I have of Murray’s handing it over to Branden comes in an unpublished letter from Rothbard to Branden in which he writes, “I would like to remind you that I gave you the Georgia paper as a courteous gesture; the chances are that the issue would otherwise not have come up” (July 15, 1958). He says much the same thing in “My Break with Branden” (”Liberty,” 9/1989). Anyhow, had I found evidence about a reading, I would have written the passage differently.
3. As to the plagiarism itself, I agree that Ayn Rand hardly invented most of the ideas she tried to patent–and that she was foolish to try to control ideas, anyhow–but it was hard to be around her without getting excited about the way she formulated and phrased things, and to my ear Rothbard’s paper sometimes echoes her.
Murray Rothbard was one of my favorite people in the book. I would be sorry to do him an injustice.
Best, Anne
Michael Brown: I wasn’t asked to cut anything, so everything I wanted in the book is there. What’s still out there: her family’s and her KGB files, if they exist; KGB archives are still hard to get into and I had no luck. And her personal papers, on file in the AR Archive at ARI, which include clippings, notes, journals, calendars, photographs, and unpublished letters, including 1,000 that her Russian family sent to her. I’d love to have seen those! Thanks for writing.
Neil: There is a plan for a paperback edition to be published by Anchor, though I don’t know when. I also don’t know if I’ll be allowed to revise very much, but if I am allowed I will add new material.
Best,
Anne
Hi, Neil,
Yes, there is a plan for a paperback edition to be published by Anchor, though I don’t know when. I also don’t know if I’ll be allowed to revise very much, but if I am allowed I will add new material.
Best,
Anne
I’ve heard news your book has been
optioned for a movie!
It’ll make a great movie, the inherent drama
is that AR dissed – & ditched – everyone that supported her, except maybe the one she had the sickest narcissistic hold on, her husband:
he literally sacrificed for her, and she expected
just that! One acquaintance of her husband
referred to him as a “filet of a man” (per an
article in National Review on her life in ‘89.)
Immediately after immensley enjoying your AR biograpghy, I read Malcom Gladwell’s recent “What a Dog Saw,” Brown, 2009). There, I ran into an apparent inconsistency with your version of exactly who created the 1973 the “Because I’m worth it” slogan for L’Oreal.
Somewhere in your book, you appeared to give AR credit for that slogan.
But at pages 86 and 87, Gladwell also describes the 1973 origination of the L’Oreal slogan “Because I’m worth it.” Except for the creator of that slogan, Gladwell describes the same pressured efforts of the creative team you described. I now can’t find your description, but obviously read to recall and search for it .
Gladwell seems to ascribe the creation of the “Because I’m worth it” slogan just to a Ilon Sprecht, a 23-year old copywriter at McCann-Erickson.
Gladwell quotes Sprecht as saying “I sat down and did it, in five minutes. It was very personal. I can recite to you the whole commercial, because I was so angry when I wrote it.”
He then qotes Sprecht giving her version of the commercial.
I”ve repeatedly looked through several of your passages relating to Ayn Rand in the 1970’s, as well as your end notes and indexes, but could not relocate your description of the creation of “Because I’m worth it.”
With your response to this email, could you please not only clear up this inconsistency but also locate your description for me?
Thank you,
Dear Gerald,
It never entered my mind, let alone my book, that Ayn Rand had anything to do with that slogan. I’m not sure she would have approved of it, since it refers to outward appearances rather than inner values and qualities. I wonder where you read that Ayn Rand was involved?
Best,
Anne
Is it not your best understanding that AR was in
only two consummated man-woman relationships,
her first with her husband, and her second with
her young protege. Other potential relationships
while married, with Mannheimer, with Ashby, etc.
were only contemplated. Accurate?
Dear Michael,
To my knowledge, Ayn Rand had sexual relationships with only two men.
For research purposes. did Ayn Rand learn to drive a car ? Or did she have a chauffeur?
Hi, Paul,
No, Ayn Rand never learned to drive a car. In New York, friends chauffeured her or, more often, she took taxis. In California, her husband drove her back and forth from the San Fernando Valley, where they lived, to Hollywood during her six-month-long work periods writing for the studios. Take a look at pages 183-184 of my book and, for a funny incident, page 162.
FUNNY!, When I first read the Fountainhead in
high school I became obsessed with it, and very unhealthily, I would say. I was participating in the teenage culture of unwarranted self-importance (something which your Ayn Rand never outgrew.)
Now, I hope more healthily, I find myself quite
consumed with your biography of Rand. I have
re-read it more than once since November, it is such a good revaluation of the values she proposed.
The story you tell is the real truth about
egotism, the hurt it causes, the ingratitude
it expresses, the sick narciissistic hold over
others which a dictatorial personality attempts.
The harm done to Nathan Blumenthal via
Rand’s attempts to run his life — also the
harm done thru him as he tried to enforce
a sort of “party line” among her followers
(who were his “patients”) — struck me, as it
did Albert Ellis, as a Scientology-like cult
of mind-fucking.
I found the story very compelling, and it will
make a fine biopic on film, I think. ~MDM
http://jcbcast.blogspot.com
Great book! I enjoyed the hell out of it. Ms. Rand was, as I suspected, just another “girl next door.”
Terrific job!
I hope not! But thank you, Mike.