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and appreciated at a pivotal point in the writing of Atlas Shrugged, when Dagny, returned from Galt’s Gulch, begins to discover the unpleasant psychological motives of the left-wing bureaucrats who are marshaling their forces against her. When the author met with other acquaintances and colleagues—as she often did, either at gatherings of political conservatives or over drinks and dinner—the strain could cost her two or three days’ work. “When I’m writing I’m living in the world of the novel, not ‘ordinary reality,’” she explained. It was difficult for her to find her way back after an interruption. Surrounded on most Saturday nights by this group of captivated young people, she didn’t have to leave her fictional world or risk having its premises challenged. When she passed around or read aloud her week’s work, she saw not two but eight or nine rapt young faces beaming at her as they devoured the latest installment of a book they knew to be a masterpiece. She watched them, asking, “What? What is it?” when one of them smiled at a passage, raised an eyebrow, or showed confusion or excitement. They were astonished by the intricacy and originality of her work and so respectful of her that they politely raised their hands to ask a question or listened quietly as she, Nathaniel, and Barbara commented on the book, current events, politics, music, and theater late into the night. “The world we were living in wasn’t just the world of California or New York or UCLA or NYU,” recalled Branden in 2004. “It was the world of Atlas Shrugged.” The young people were her ideal readers, and she knew it.

One snowy night in January 1953, Rand and O’Connor climbed into the backseat of a limousine and rode north to White Plains, a suburb of New York, to act as matron of honor and best man at Nathaniel and Barbara’s wedding. The ceremony took place in the home of one of Barbara’s aunts. In photographs, Frank stands beside the groom, looking thin, handsome, and paternal in a dark suit and a white boutonniere. Rand stands next to Barbara, in profile appearing glamorous and young. She wears a black-and-white gown designed by Adrian (tsked at by some of the relatives, who considered a black dress inappropriate), and on one side her dark hair is slicked back, revealing a sweet expression on her face. As she looks on, the newly married couple kisses. That night, after a reception, the Brandens returned to their new studio apartment to discover that O’Connor had filled its single room with fragrant flowers.

That night, too, some of Nathaniel’s relatives noticed that his mother, herself a formidable woman, was jealous of Ayn Rand. Dinah Blumenthal had raised her son to be a young prince, her young prince, and wasn’t pleased when she saw firsthand his strong attachment to his best man’s wife. “She was so offended, so mad, so very jealous” of the relationship, said a family member, that she never afterward liked or approved of Rand. Even then, she knew that “he liked Ayn better than he liked her.”

The apartment was at 165 East Thirty-fifth Street, two blocks east and one block south of the O’Connors’ apartment. In months and years to come, some members of the Collective and an assortment of other young enthusiasts would find and rent apartments in the surrounding blocks. Many would later reflect that this was the infant geography of the Ayn Rand cult.

ELEVEN

THE IMMOVABLE MOVER

1953–1957

Only the man who extols the purity of a love devoid of desire, is capable of the depravity of a desire devoid of love.

—Atlas Shrugged, 1957

In the 1960s, new young acolytes would be surprised to find that Rand had few close friends of her own age or level of ability. But in the early 1950s, she was a legend in the tiny world of the New York intellectual Right. The Fountainhead had almost single-handedly renewed popular interest in the cause of individualism. Rumor spread quickly that she was finishing a massive new novel that would do the same for capitalism. Few knew her, and everyone wanted to meet her.

New York was such a politically liberal city in