Ayn Rand: Extremist or Visionary?

Rand's success brought her thousands of fan letters. One of them, from Nathan Blumenthal, a 19-year-old freshman at UCLA, changed the 45-year-old novelist's life. The student became a member of the close-knit circle of her followers nicknamed the Collective, which included Greenspan. But before long, Blumenthal, by then named Nathaniel Branden, was her declared "intellectual heir." Writes Heller: "A month before her 50th birthday, she and Nathaniel received their partners' permission to meet for sex twice a week ... The affair provided excitement and deep fulfillment at a crucial, and essentially pleasureless, moment in her writing life." The book in question was Atlas Shrugged, her 1,000-page 1957 masterwork about the government's battle with captains of industry, led by John Galt, for control of the economy. The next year, Branden established an institute to promote Rand's philosophy of reason.

Alas, all of Rand's stern declarations about reason trumping emotion were of little value in 1968, when Branden revealed an affair with a young actress, whom he later married. Rand repudiated him, closed the institute and never spoke to her protégé of 19 years again.