Ayn Rand and the World She Made

September 7, 2009
Two books examine the life and thought of Ayn Rand.
Ayn Rand and the World She Made
Anne C. Heller
. Doubleday/ Talese
, $35 (576p) ISBN 978-0-385-51399-9

Alissa Zinovievna Rosenbaum was born to Jewish parents in 1905 Russia. Ayn Rand left Russia in 1926 for America and founded her anticollectivist philosophy, Objectivism, a philosophy of free market capitalism and the pursuit of self-interest as a moral good. Depressive, pill-taking, chain-smoking and manipulative, Rand's life was defined by a longtime Sunset Boulevard–like affair with Nathaniel Branden, who went on to start the self-esteem movement. At the same time, the combustible Rand was married to a passive man with matinee-idol looks. Magazine editor and journalist Heller competently describes Rand's feuds with William F. Buckley and with her sister, who had remained in the U.S.S.R., and the more courtly relationship Rand had with publisher Bennett Cerf. This objective account of the Objectivist Rand will interest her still large and devoted readership. Photos.

August 1, 2009
The long career and cluttered personal life of the writer who said she owed no philosophical debts to anyone but Aristotle.

In her debut, magazine journalist and editor Heller calls herself a"strong admirer" of Ayn Rand (1905–1982), who was born in Russia as Alissa Zinovievna Rosenbaum."Ayn" (rhymes with"mine") was her father's nickname for her; no one knows the source of"Rand." Heller's admiration is most evident in her diction—throughout, she employs terms like"breathtaking" and"farsighted and brave"—but because she is not purely partisan, she was denied access to the Ayn Rand archives. Still, the author's research is formidable—her endnotes cover more than 100 pages—and she ably highlights the hues of Rand's dark side(s). The founder of the philosophy of Objectivism and author of perennial bestsellers The Fountainhead (1943) and Atlas Shrugged (1957) could be petty, vindictive, disingenuous, deceptive and profoundly needy. She frequently quoted her characters as if they were real, and she maintained a secret sexual relationship with the much younger Nathaniel Branden, who was her designated financial and intellectual heir until he betrayed her for a younger woman. Heller spends a large portion of the narrative following the arc of the Branden relationship (he was married, as well), and its complexities and intensities ultimately became pathetic and wearisome. Heller examines Rand's Russian girlhood (she was a brilliant loner), her emigration and arrival in New York City, her sojourns in Hollywood—where she worked on screenplays and met future husband, actor Frank O'Connor—her struggles to write her massive novels and her battles with the Left. However, the author never convincingly explains Rand's powerful personal magnetism.

A treatment sometimes vitiated by the author's affection for her subject, but the most thorough we're likely to see until Rand's papers become more accessible.

(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

September 1, 2009
There is a scene in Heller's biography where the controversial writer Rand and her husband delight in the fact that they can select from the more expensive items on a cafeteria menu after selling the movie rights of "The Fountainhead". The scene illustrates Heller's ability to capture the essence of her subject. Rand, never a fan of the poor masses, was elated to remove herself from the mob. Although Heller was denied access to the Ayn Rand Institute's archives, because she is not an advocate for Rand's ideas, she still performs beautifully. Heller conducted over 50 interviews, including three long interviews with Rand's former lover, Nathaniel Branden. She traces Rand's childhood in Russia; her arrival in America; her unconventional marriage to actor Frank O'Connor; her work as a playwright and novelist; the development of objectivism, Rand's philosophy that embraces capitalist individualism and rejects altruism; and her long-standing extramarital affair. VERDICT An impartial, well-documented, and sweeping biography for fans and scholars of Rand; with a bibliography and 100-plus pages of notes.Stacy Russo, Chapman Univ. Libs., Orange, CA

Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from July 1, 2009
Famous for her credo of individualism and unbridled capitalism, novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand never talked about her life as Alissa Zinovievna Rosenbaum, an awkward and offbeat Russian Jewish girl of startling intelligence. Yet Heller believes that Rands adamant self-regard and vehement protest against any form of collectivism or social conscience are rooted in her familys suffering in early-twentieth-century Russia, where Jews were violently persecuted and personal freedom was abolished. Heller is the first to fully investigate and vigorously chronicle Rands willful life and phenomenal and controversial achievements, from her sense of destiny (by age 11 she had already written four novels) to her arrival in America at age 21 in 1926, her work in Hollywood, and her reign in New York as a cult figurehead. Heller also offers arresting analysis of The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, Rands critically condemned yet perpetually popular and enormously influential novels of erotic melodrama and self-aggrandizing ideology. But the heart of the book is the wrenching story of Rands marriage to long-suffering Frank OConnor and her affair with the much younger man who packaged and peddled her beliefs as Objectivism. The champion of individuality who insisted on obedience and conformity from her followers (including Alan Greenspan), Rand emerges from Hellers superbly vivid, enlightening, and affecting biography in all her paradoxical power.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)