assertion that has been bitterly disputed: TPOAR, p. 272, and JD, p. 166; TPOARC, p. 142. Because of its implications for the cruel effect of the affair on FO, the extent of his drinking has been a subject of controversy. The Brandens present evidence that FO drank alcoholically. AR’s executor, LP, and other acquaintances dispute this. My research suggests that, at least toward the end of his life, FO drank heavily and secretly.
“I confused loneliness”: Speech by NB, New York City, June 22, 1989; courtesy of Liberty Audio and Film Service, 2214 Hey Road, Richmond, VA 23224.
“This affair is sexual”: JD, p. 217.
“Where have you gone to?”: MYWAR, p. 142.
he told himself: JD, p. 163.
“I never did, until things started showing at the seams”: Author interview with JMB and Allan Blumenthal, March 23, 2004.
“Ayn wasn’t very clean”: Taped interview with Barbara Weiss, AR’s secretary from the early 1960s until the late 1970s, conducted by BB, September 25, 1983.
264 “In a world that was hurtling toward collectivism”: Author interview with Al Ramrus, March 5, 2007.
“as though I were entering Atlantis”: Leonard Peikoff, “My Thirty Years with Ayn Rand,” The Voice of Reason, p. 353.
“She wanted us to discuss”: Author interview with EK, July 21, 2006.
“like an old tank”: Facets of Ayn Rand, pp. 33, 39.
aware of the author standing half hidden: Author interview with Daryn Kent-Duncan, April 25, 2005.
gave them the going wage: Facets of Ayn Rand, p. 38; interview with Daryn Kent-Duncan, April 25, 2005.
rent check slipped their minds: Videotaped interview with Hank and Erica Holzer, AR’s personal attorneys, 1965–70, by Duncan Scott, the Objectivist History Project, February 9, 2006.
packets of fan letters arrived from Bobbs-Merrilclass="underline" Author interview with BB, October 14, 2007.
“very good—to be answered”: Videotaped interview with Robert Hessen by Duncan Scott, OHP, November 10, 2004.
Nickerson began to attend: 100 Voices, Kathleen and Richard Nickerson, p. 180.
“spiritual bodyguard”: Author interview with NB, December 11, 2008.
“desperately”: Author interview with Daryn Kent-Duncan, April 25, 2005.
paid little attention to girls: Author interviews with BB (October 14, 2007) and others.
“devastating”: Author interview with Daryn Kent-Duncan, April 25, 2005.
“who neither agrees or disagrees”: AS, p. 971.
“kangaroo courts”: Ayn Rand and Her Movement,” p. 8.
Peikoff was a particular target: MYWAR, p. 158.
“When she laid out her argument”: Author interview with BB, December 16, 2005.
“The six months I had spent”: Author interview with Daryn Kent-Duncan, April 25, 2005.
“he regards reason and emotion as antagonists”: MYWAR, p. 165.
he who “pulled the trigger”: MYWAR, p. 172.
that is, Albert Jay Nock’s Remnant: AR’s returning strikers mirror Nock’s Remnant of conservative true believers who will one day redeem the world, a tribute she may be slyly acknowledging when she writes, in John Galt’s speech, “Whoever you are, you who are hearing me now, I am speaking to whatever living remnant is left uncorrupted within you, to the remnant of the human, your mind” (AS, p. 932).
TWELVE: ATL ASSHRUGGED: 1957
“If anyone should ask me”: “The Goal of My Writing,” The Romantic Manifesto, p. 172.
“Those who are anti-business are anti-life”: Letter to John Chamberlain, November 27, 1948 (LOAR, p. 413).
decided not to show the text: JD, p. 201.
“To the glory of mankind”: AS, p. 385.
“the book is unsaleable and un-publishable”: TPOAR, p. 284.
tripped over itself to court her: TPOAR, p. 285.
dozen companies phoned or wrote: Reported by BC in a 1971 oral history interview from which his memoir At Random (1977) was taken; recorded by Robin Hawkins, 1968, for the Columbia University Oral History Project, Columbia University Rare Book and Manuscript Library, New York, used by permission of Christopher Cerf; number 719, p. 945.
Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer, were Communists: Words & Faces, p. 260. In his oral history interview, BC said that AR had explained to Hiram Haydn that, in Cerf’s words, “her sycophants had told her that we were way over on the left” (p. 944). In TPOAR, BB writes that the novelist had long considered Random House to be a left-wing publisher (p. 285).
“the exact replica”: Words & Faces, p. 257.
she tolerated him [Hayden]: Although “he would not have known it,” BB recalled, “she didn’t like him.” In fact, “with a few exceptions, I can’t remember her ever saying that she liked someone without adding a list of qualifications” (author correspondence with BB, June 26, 2008).
lunch took place in the Trianon Room: Words & Faces, p. 260.
“an infinite number” of questions: Bennett Cerf, At Random: The Reminiscences of Bennett Cerf (New York: Random House, 1977).
was delighted with his answer: Words & Faces, p. 261.
“nobody is going to try to censor you”: At Random. BC later claimed that he meant he would publish anything she wrote as fiction.
posthumously published memoir: At Random was edited by Christopher Cerf and published posthumously, based on BC’s oral history interview on file at Columbia University’s Oral History Project, number 719.
“They spoke as I would want”: TPOAR, p. 286.
To all of these terms the men agreed: Internal memo, Bennett Cerf Collection, Columbia University Rare Book and Manuscript Library, box 57.
should not exceed 600,000 words: Letter to AR from BC (Bennett Cerf Collection, Columbia Rare Book and Manuscript Library, box 57).
“This is life as it should be”: JD, p. 202.
“They didn’t pretend to be converted”: TPOAR, p. 288.
“What I loved to do”: BC’s oral history interview, p. 943.
“she peers right through you”: BC’s oral history interview, p. 944.
“a remarkable woman”: Donald Klopfer, in an oral history interview on file at the Columbia University Oral History Project archives, number 1091, p. 79.